


Seven to a Million

by KoutaDragara



Category: Left 4 Dead (Video Games)
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Blood and Gore, Character Development, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Romantic Tension, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2018-12-21 15:32:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11947227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoutaDragara/pseuds/KoutaDragara
Summary: The two groups had gone their separate ways just as quickly as they had come together, expecting never to meet again. Now their mutual misfortune has rejoined them, and they are faced with their greatest journey yet. They continue to walk the perilous line between life and death, but now they do so together.Zellis-centric with Franchelle on the side. Continuation of the in-game story, picking up a few days after The Parish. Contains OCs, but they are kept to more minor roles.Cross-posted on FanfictionDotNet under the same username.





	1. Suppression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One group hides on an island. One group is captive on a ship. They met once, and they know they'll never meet again.
> 
> The survivors live their lives from day to day, making the best of their two little worlds. They have no clue of what the sunset may bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a story that I've slowly worked on over the past couple of years, which I had previously only posted on FF.net but now am cross-posting here to try and reach a wider audience.
> 
> I'm definitely in search of feedback, since the main reason I've ended up working so slowly on this is because of me constantly second-guessing myself (which gives me a strong love-hate relationship with my work).
> 
> Hopefully some of you guys will enjoy this story enough to get me inspired again so I can finish cranking out chapter 4. :)

The sun was slowly descending, the majority of the Florida sky still blue with rims of orange and pink merging with the horizon. Seabirds cried in the distance, the sound harmonizing peacefully with the gentle swooshing of the ocean waves as they crawled up the shore only to sink back into their source.

It was an atmosphere in stark contrast to the terrifying and wretched one that had spread over most of the planet within a few short weeks as an unprecedented supervirus single-handedly brought the human race to its knees.

The calm was a welcome change to a young woman of nineteen who had, so far, survived the apocalypse with only the help of some scavenged weaponry and three _very_ different companions.

Two, now.

She was seated atop a palm tree that was bent over the clear shallows of the ocean below, its fronds swaying in the breeze. She held out a fishing pole found on the sailboat that had brought her group to their island paradise, but it was already beginning to bend permanently downwards and lose its bright finish to frequent usage and exposure to the elements.

The brand logo was still discernable, but brands had ceased to be even remotely important in the zombie apocalypse.

_“Come on, fish. You know you want this bait.”_

Her green eyes intensely studied a small, drab fish swimming busily about her line, occasionally nibbling at the scrap of meat on the hook but never taking it.

She gave the line a small tug to entice her target. “Bite the hook, you stupid fish,” she mumbled under her breath.

It ignored her demands and continued flitting about, its close proximity to the hook cruelly taunting her. She tugged again, her patience wearing thin after catching only four small specimens during several hours of fishing.

That was perhaps two good meals at most for a single person. And she was fishing for three, one of whom was a burly man with an appetite that doubled, possibly even tripled that of his companions’.

She sighed in exasperation when her target finally decided that it was through tormenting her and darted away into deeper waters.

“Screw you too, fish.”

She ran a thin hand over her sweaty forehead and through her dark hair before lying down upon the palm’s nearly-horizontal trunk. _“Great. Looks like we get to dig into the rations again,”_ she thought as she stared at the flapping fronds of the properly-upright palms behind her that passively shaded her from the sun.

The rations that had been stockpiled on the sailboat by its previous owners were plentiful, without a doubt. On their own, they were more than enough to last the group of three for a couple of months at the very least.

But they were smart enough to realize that their limited supply of canned goods and MREs couldn’t last forever. It was decided the day they arrived (which happened to be five days previously) that meals would consist of fresh food from the island with the rations being preserved for unlucky days, such as this one appeared to be, where the gathered sustenance wouldn’t be enough for a full meal.

She continued to stare at the fronds for several minutes, the cool breeze rushing over her body like a river, and her bare arms and legs receiving the greatest relief from the heat. She sat up as the wind died away, studied the sun’s position in the sky, and cast her line again, hoping that another fish would happen by and decide to actually take the bait.

She still had another hour or so left until she had to call it a day.

* * *

 The remaining hour had passed and the sky was now a beautiful shade of gold, the sun nearly amalgamating with its distorted twin on the undulating surface of the ocean. The young woman noted that it could’ve very well been a picture on a postcard or vacation brochure, and the thought of such things brought with it a pang of longing sadness in her heart.

She had no sooner felt that pang than she buried it in an ever-growing heap with the multitude of other things she had forced herself to forget, to hide away for the rest of her years on the now zombie-infested Earth for the sake of preserving what was left of her own sanity.

She found herself wondering just how many years of her life had been shaved off already from the omnipresent anxiety.

Suddenly, she was returned to the matter at hand when she noticed a dark, slender shape darting about her hook, seemingly torn between biting the presented meat and returning to the reefs for the night. The sea had been merciful enough to provide her with another, larger fish within the previous hour, and apparently still had mercy to show.

She jerked the line away, a maneuver that proved quite successful with this fish. Afraid to lose a free meal, it carelessly engulfed the bait in its mouth and earned a rusting hook through its blank face for its troubles.

Her captured prey realized its fatal mistake seconds too late, and desperately struggled in vain against the force holding it back. She began to firmly reel it in, a satisfied grin on her face as the fish was drawn closer and closer to shore.

_“Well, maybe only Francis will have to dig into the rations tonight.”_

It was still very much alive as it was lifted out of the water, flailing madly while suspended helplessly in the suffocating air. She laid the pole across her lap and gripped the line just above the thrashing creature, waiting a few seconds for it to tire before grabbing the fish itself and removing the piercing metal from its mouth with a pair of pliers from her pocket.

She dropped her newest catch into a stained, plastic blue bucket waiting below that was filled halfway with seawater and the five other fish, before lifting herself off of the palm and down to the warm sand of the beach. She pulled the line back over the pole and caught the hook on the hook keeper before setting it down next to a clear tackle box beside the bucket.

She carried the bucket to the edge of the shallows where she proceeded to pour out a large amount of the water, leaving just enough to keep the fish alive until they could be dressed. Before stepping out of the water, she paused and felt the wet sand slipping in and out from between her toes as she absentmindedly wiggled them in the small waves.

The warmth lessened the dull ache in her feet from the large amounts of running, climbing, and kicking she had done over the past few weeks, and that spending a semester lazily holed up in her room and watching horror movies hadn’t prepared her for.

However, before she could dwell on the past again, she pushed the memories from her mind and instead focused on the pleasant physical sensation of the present. She supposed she had to find joy in _something_ if she were to maintain her wits.

After sufficiently relieving her feet, she procured her supplies from the sand and began the short walk back to their improvised home in one of the Dry Tortugas National Park’s small, abandoned staff buildings.

* * *

 “Hey, Francis. You seen my spit anywhere?” asked a lanky man as he rummaged through an organized stack of plastic bins and cardboard boxes, a few of which he found mold beginning to grow on. He would have to take care of that after cooking.

He lifted out various small supplies one by one, meticulously searching under and behind each and every object without disrupting the order and neatness he tried to maintain.

His training as a systems analyst resurfaced as he carefully examined the problem before him and methodically went about trying to solve it. He had retraced his steps, sorted out possible locations, and was currently in the process of checking and rechecking every nook and cranny since the previous two tricks had failed him.

Going about finding the spit and treating it as if it were an issue with a computer gave him a strange feeling of nostalgia. When his mind reflexively jumped to the stereotypical “did-you-try-turning-it-off-and-on-again” question, he realized that old habits really did die hard.

“Louis, I didn’t know it was my job to keep up with where you spit,” came Francis’s gruff and sarcastic reply, bringing Louis abruptly out of his thoughts.

He sighed and inwardly slapped himself for not thinking before he spoke, allowing Francis to twist his words for his own amusement. “My _skewer_ , Francis. Have you seen my _skewer_?” Louis turned to see a superior smirk on the biker’s face.

“Oh, _that_ spit! You gotta learn to clarify yourself better, man.” He gave a light chuckle as he scratched his cheek. “But nah, I haven’t seen it anywhere. You better find it soon, though. I’m starvin’.”

He turned to step out of the small office they had converted into a storage room when Louis stopped him. “You put my skewer somewhere, didn’t you?”

Francis had been caught. He would admit that he didn’t put that much effort into where he had hidden the spit, performing the prank merely as part of a daily competition of wits with Louis, but he wasn’t about to let his friend off _that_ easily.

“No, now why would _I_ take your skewer, Louis? Why would a hungry guy like me take somethin’ his cook needs to make his food?” Louis’s bored and unimpressed expression clearly let him know that he was failing miserably at convincing him.

“First off, I’m not your cook. We’ve been over this. Second, why would you even be _in_ here if there was nothing to entertain you?” He sat against the stack of boxes, his head resting on his hand as he awaited Francis’s reply, dumb as it might be.

The duo had spent most of their time on the island together in this fashion: they would tepidly test each other’s wits in random ways, such as harmless pranking and petty banter. They had at first attempted to include their third companion in their “games” as well, but she quite often served as the game-ender. As a result, their friendly competitions only played out when it was just the two of them.

Louis asserted that such mind-exercises were very good for maintaining their mental health, and so he and Francis continued to tolerate each other’s conflicting personalities, using them as fuel for harmless teasing.

“I could tell that you were lookin’ for something’, so I came to see what you were lookin’ for. Excuse _me_ for tryin’ to help, Mr. Accusation.” Francis raised his hands in feigned resignation before planting them on his hips confidently as he tried to calculate Louis’s next move.

The analyst’s face lit up and he pointed triumphantly at his opponent. “Ah-hah! Wrong answer, Francis.”

“What?” The situation wasn’t looking very good for the biker.

“You would never help me find something unless I _made you_.” Louis crossed his slender arms, a smile now growing on his face. Victory from this point was practically assured. Francis wasn’t too fond of losing, and quickly flared up without realizing it.

“Bullshit! Like skinny, little you could ever _make_ me do anything.”

“Exactly.” Louis chuckled victoriously. “The only person you would ever let order you around is Bill.”

The increasingly warm atmosphere suddenly became cold at the mention of their old leader’s name. Neither could speak for several moments as they looked away from each other, instead focusing on some small, obscure detail of the room to take their attention off the mutual sadness they felt.

“… Yeah,” Francis eventually mumbled, momentarily breaking the suffocating silence.

Ever since Bill’s death at the bridge in Rayford, there had been a noticeable change in the group.

There was, of course, a bitter sadness at losing a teammate, a genuine friend, when the group was so close to reaching the safety they had all fought so hard for. There was a deep-seated fear that another member of their group would be lost, or that the group would fall apart without Bill to hold them together. There was an ever-present regret, a belief amongst all three that somehow, things could’ve been different, that Bill’s death could’ve been avoided.

Bill’s motto of “we look out for our own” was not forgotten by his three companions, and they each had made a silent pledge of their own accord to continue to uphold it and preserve the group, but the strictness with which they chose to live by the motto varied between them.

The three remaining survivors knew that things would never be the same without Bill, and also knew that it would be a fairly long time before they all fully recovered from the incident, if they truly recovered at all.

The two companions remained in the storage room for several moments, silent and distant to each other, as the sadness gradually lessened to a much more tolerable level. Francis was the first to come back to reality.

“So… I guess you’ve won back your skewer,” he said somberly.

“Where is it?”

“In my sleeping bag.” This prompted a disgusted look from Louis.

“Man, that’s kinda nasty, don’t you think? I know you’re you, but I’d expect you to be at least a little more considerate of me and Zoey. We have to eat food off that too, y’know.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think about it too much. Just put it the first place I thought of.” He scratched the back of his head sheepishly as Louis stood up, grunting quietly at the dull throbbing in his left thigh. He rubbed it gently before standing fully upright.

“Looks like I get to wash it off, then.”

“Nah, I’ll… I’ll… do it.” Louis was quite shocked by Francis’s offer. Rude, brash, and arrogant Francis was actually offering to help someone else without even being asked? He would say that it was a sign of the apocalypse, but that had already happened.

“Heh. If the old man were here, I know he’d make me clean it off. And he’d be on my ass the whole time to make sure I did it his way, too.”

Louis felt a smile tugging on his lips as he closed his eyes and pictured the scene. He couldn’t stop a chuckle from escaping his throat as he shook his head. “Yeah. He would, wouldn’t he?”

Louis limped behind Francis to the main room of the building, which was large and lined along the walls with shelves that once displayed various fishing supplies, designated by signs hanging above them. In the corner farthest from the door, between a shelf labeled “Bait and Decoys” and a long-defunct and empty refrigerator labeled “Fresh Bait”, was a gathering of three sleeping bags.

Francis carelessly squatted on the middle sleeping bag, Louis’s, as he unzipped the one closest to the wall and procured the missing spit from it. He obviously wasn’t extraordinarily changed, but Louis didn’t mind too much. He was quite used to it and didn’t expect otherwise.

“So how about I play the role of Bill and make sure you clean the skewer my way?” joked Louis as the biker began to walk towards the front door.

“Hey. Don’t push it.” He gave Louis a slight glare as he pointed at his face, directing the smaller man backwards. “I can clean a gun, so I think I can clean a skewer.” He continued on towards the door.

Louis raised his hands in submission. “Well, alright then. You just might wanna have that cleaned up before Zoey gets here. You don’t want her thinking you’ve gone soft, have you?” Francis paused once again and glared irritably at him.

“I told you, you’re pushin’ it. Stop me one more time, and I’m shovin’ this thing up your ass and makin’ _you_ pull it out and clean it. Got it?”

Before Louis could reply, the door squeaked open obnoxiously as Zoey stepped inside, bucket in one hand and the tackle box in the other.

“Nice to see you two haven’t killed each other while I was gone.” She noted Francis’s irritated look and the spit gripped firmly in his hand. “But I think if I had gotten here a little later, that might not have been quite true.”

Louis smirked and looked back to the biker. “Looks like you’re a little behind schedule, Francis.”

“Shut up. Just shut up. I’m outta here.” With that, Francis stomped around Zoey, his bare feet making conspicuous slapping noises on the hard, smooth floor. He jerked the door open and quickly made his escape. “See you assholes later.” The door creaked in complaint as it slowly closed behind him.

“I’m guessing you won your daily competition?” Zoey asked with only mild interest as she placed the bucket and tackle box on the front counter next to the register.

“Yeah, I think I did.”

“I guess there was a deal or bet of some sort. Did you pass cooking duty over to him tonight or something?” Before Louis could answer, she quickly made her opinion of Francis’s cooking known, not that his own opinion differed. “I _really_ hope you didn’t pass cooking duty over to him. I’d like some good food tonight.”

“Heheh. No, I’m still cooking, I promise. He just gets to clean the spit off because he hid it in his sleeping bag as a prank.” Her face quickly twisted in revulsion.

“Ugh. That’s gross,” she remarked, sharing his sentiment. “Maybe one of us should go and make sure he cleans it right. I personally would prefer _not_ to eat whatever gunk is crusted over in his sleeping bag.” She squinted her eyes at the group of sleeping bags, waggling her fingers in a creepy-crawly manner as she described the nastiness within.

“I already offered, and you see how pissed off he got.” He then hunched over slightly and held his arms stiffly bent to his sides as if he were flexing large and powerful muscles. “I can clean a gun, I think I can clean a skewer,” he said in his best imitation of Francis’s gravelly voice, pointing his finger in Zoey’s face. “Don’t push it.”

His imitation earned a chuckle from Zoey. “ _Wow_ Francis, I thought you left already! What’d you do with Louis?” Her playful sarcasm brought a wide smile to the analyst’s face. Catching her in a good mood never failed to make his own mood brighten up significantly, especially now that her good moods had become increasingly sporadic.

She shook her head as she descended from the temporary buzz before walking back to the door and searching for Francis through the glass. “So what were you pushing, anyway?”

“Ah, it was nothing. You know how he gets mad over little things.” He joined her at the door and watched as Francis walked up to their fire pit, carrying a bucket of water that his observers hoped was from their purifier.

Zoey didn’t watch long before going back to the counter, followed shortly by Louis. “So who’s gonna clean the fish, since Francis is busy cleaning the spit?”

“We can rock-paper-scissors for it,” he suggested, leaning on the counter to lessen the weight on his injured leg. Zoey brought her hands to the ready, but thought for a moment before dropping them back to her sides.

“No, it’s not fair to make you pull double-duty. I’ll do it.” She grabbed the bucket and moved for the door, but was halted by Louis grabbing her arm.

“Well, if it’s not fair for me to pull double-duty, it’s not fair for you.”

“Do you _really_ want to wait for Francis to finish before these get cleaned? No telling how long that’s gonna take. The fish might all be dead by then.” Her stomach growled loudly as if to concur with her words.

“Look, how about we split the job? That seems pretty fair to me. And we’ll get done twice as fast.” Zoey weighed his offer before looking back up with a subdued smirk.

“Alright. I’ll take that. I just hope Francis can keep up with us.”

* * *

 A petite woman was briskly making her daily trip to the medical bay of the USS Gettysburg through the quarantined section of its twisting lower corridors. She was late for her shift at the bedside of a specific patient, and was still attempting to calm herself from the catastrophe that had put her behind schedule.

She turned a corner and was nearly run down by two people dashing in the direction she had come. She recognized them as members of the ship’s medical staff, barely catching glimpses of their faces as they continued down the corridor as if she hadn’t been there at all.

_“Must’ve just found out what happened.”_

She continued down the hallway, passing several doors in the medical bay before reaching her destination. She stood before the door and took a deep breath as she attempted to clear her mind. No need to further make herself look like a mentally unstable and helpless fool in front of her teammates.

She let her mind be overtaken by the white noise of the ship. The monotonous hum from the pipes and vents overhead lulled her into a temporary sense of security and peace.

“Come in,” said the bored man currently on bedside duty after she finally knocked on the metal door. She gently pushed it open to see him leaning his chair backwards on two legs against the metal wall, his arms crossed expectantly.

“It’s about time, Rochelle. I was starting to think you were gonna leave me in here for a whole other shift.” He lowered the chair down to the floor as she quietly pulled the door shut behind her.

“Well, would you have stayed if I had?” She meandered in front of him and crossed her own arms, mimicking his expectancy. It would seem that he hadn’t yet been told the news. She wasn’t surprised, since apparently not even the medical staff had known until mere minutes before.

“No,” he stated quickly and dryly.

She scoffed and turned in the direction of the room’s patient, who was sound asleep. “Oh, come on now, Nick. He saved your life, didn’t he?” She gestured to him as she spoke and Nick reflexively followed her gaze, clasping his hands together as he leaned over onto his forearms. “And besides, you know he’d do the same for you.”

“Yeah… Yeah, I know.” His mildly dejected tone, coupled with a tired sigh and resigned hand through his dark hair, betrayed his true feelings and what he would’ve really done. “Ellis would sit and wait for days like a dumb dog. No doubt about it.” Rochelle nodded slowly in agreement. “Hell, he’d probably cry too.”

“Don’t say that like it’s a bad thing. It shows that he cares.” She faced Nick as he relinquished the chair to her and made for the door. She then picked it up and moved it from the foot of the bed to the head, where she could talk to Ellis should he wake. “And by the way, dinner is pretty awful tonight.”

“Huh. When does it ever qualify as ‘good’?”

She shrugged. “At least most of it is better than what we’d been eating.”

“I don’t know how strongly I’d agree with you on that.” He raised his hand in a half-hearted wave and turned back to the door, but she stopped him once again before could leave.

“And Nick… Watch out for the soldiers tonight.”

He halted abruptly and looked over his shoulder at her, his body language suddenly wary. “What’s going on?”

“Coach can explain it to you better than I can.” She felt guilty that she was pushing the job on Coach, but she was trying to avoid recounting the scene as much as possible. There was already one event that she relived almost every night, and she didn’t need another.

He watched her for a moment with furrowed brows. “Rochelle, are you okay?” She knew she wasn’t hiding her current state of mind very well and his concern was appreciated, but she _really_ didn’t want to talk about it.

“Yes, I’m fine. You just go on.” He didn’t push her to elaborate, though he clearly wanted to, instead continuing out into the hallway and onto the quarantined “carriers-only” cafeteria.

Rochelle sighed as she settled down into the well-worn chair, attempting to get as comfortable as possible. She was taking the shortest shift that day, but she still had a couple of hours until she would be sent back to the carriers’ quarters for the night. She resolved to make as much of the quiet as possible while she still had it.

_“Alright. That’s over with, time to think about something else.”_

Once she had gotten into a comfortable position, she looked over her injured companion for any changes, positive or negative, since the last time she had seen him.

His breathing was deep and stable, a positive sign for his broken ribs. Though she knew that this was most likely only because of his being asleep and heavily medicated, she was nonetheless pleased to hear it. Listening to his ragged and shallow breathing all throughout their time on the helicopter from New Orleans had frightened her to no end.

The bandages on his head had already been removed, and she could once again clearly see the road rash on the left side of his face and the long laceration extending from above his left eye to his left cheek, taking out a portion of his eyebrow that happened to be in its path. It had taken seven stitches to close, and she had been told by one of the doctors that they would be the first set to come out.

His left arm, also marked by road rash, was bandaged firmly at an angle to support a sprained and chipped elbow, and would most likely remain bandaged for a few weeks. However, it had been explained that even after the wraps came off, the usefulness of that arm would still be reduced for a while longer.

“Oh, Ellis…” She reached out and gently gripped his right hand, careful not to push on the IVs in his wrist. She traced random shapes on the back of his hand with her thumb as she noted the state of a large, dark bruise on his forearm. It was getting better, but still looked quite tender. “That Tank really messed you up, didn’t it?”

The memory of what happened four days ago on the Veterans Memorial Bridge was still quite vivid in her mind, predominating over the new event by a large margin. 

* * *

She and Coach were holding up the back as Ellis and Nick ran slightly ahead, all of them rapidly firing round after round into the overwhelming horde. The screeching and snarling was deafening, and the smell of rot and smoke filled her head. She found herself gradually being separated from her teammates by the swarm. She felt the world closing in on her, both physically and sensationally, and she could’ve sworn that she had begun to suffocate in the pandemonium.

But they couldn’t stop. They _had_ to keep moving. Stopping meant certain death, and they had already come so far. They were too close to their goal to die. Far too close.

As they neared the opposite side of the bridge, the foreboding roars of a Tank could be heard in the distance, and any hope she had left by that point had shrunk away to almost nothing. The abandoned cars on the opposite side flew into the air one by one as the charging beast effortlessly threw them aside like an unruly child tossing about his toys.

They didn’t stop running, didn’t stop shooting. They couldn’t. They pressed on, jumping over debris and climbing over cars, dashing over the crumpled corpses littering the ground and shoving away the ones that still ran madly at them. The horde seemed to thicken instead of thin out and the Tank drew closer. It was still far enough away that it couldn’t be spotted, but its roars were clear and menacing, and the objects it hit into the air were a very straightforward indication that it was on its way.

Suddenly, the wretched scream of a Smoker somehow found its way to their ears. “No! No! Smoker’s got me!” she heard Nick yell over the cacophony, undoubtedly being dragged somewhere far away while she was unable to see anything past the lines of abandoned cars and the relentless swarm.

She tried to remember which direction the Smoker's screech had come from, but all sounds she had heard echoed cruelly around her. She fired and fired, knowing that she was using up too many bullets too fast. But she didn’t care anymore.

“Nick! Nick, where are you?! I’m coming, Nick!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. He answered with a single pained scream as the air was squeezed from him. “Nick! Hang on!”

She couldn’t move forward anymore. The infected were too closely-packed, too strong. She stopped using her Uzi as a firearm and instead proceeded to bludgeon any zombies within her reach with it as she tried in vain to charge through them like a valiant heroine in some fantastic story, off to Nick’s rescue. In reality she was more like a wild animal, drowning in an undead sea and screaming until she could scream no more.

Time seemed to slow to a stop. Her heart pounded in her ears. The sound was too much. She was going deaf, she knew it. She was being beaten and clawed and bitten from all sides. Zombies were pulling her back by her matted hair, by her ragged clothes, by her empty backpack. Every part of her body screamed with agony.

She wanted to drop everything where she stood, fall to her bruised knees, and cry every single tear that she had withheld with pride over the past week as she was finally devoured alive by the horde.

She was going to die. Nick was going to die. They were _all_ going to die, right then and there.

There was no hope of survival. It was pointless to even try. There was nothing left for them but pain and misery and horror. There was no safe place left on Earth. Everything was dying, dead, or undead. They could no longer prolong the inevitable.

The Green Flu was omnipresent, inescapable, unstoppable. How pathetic that she finally accepted that horrid truth in her moment of death. She knew it all along, but had refused to give in to the unpleasant reality even though she saw it everywhere, every day...

“Rochelle!” She heard her name called from somewhere off to her right. “Rochelle! Come on, girl! Snap out of it!”

It was Coach.

She looked in the direction of his voice to see him clearing out the wall of infected between them with his shotgun. He later told her that she had slowed to a trudge, her Uzi held limply at her side as she let the horde overwhelm her. She had felt warm liquid running down her face, and she couldn’t remember if it was blood, sweat, or tears. In retrospect, it was probably a gruesome mixture of all three.

He punched away the infected immediately surrounding her and gripped her arm with the firm and reassuring hold characteristic of him. “Come on, now. We ain’t got time for that shit. You stay with us, Ro.”

He took a split second to look her in the eye, and then returned to slaying the relentless infected when he had decided that she was sufficiently back in reality.

“Th-thank you, Coach,” was all that could force itself from her dry throat.

“Don’t make us leave you behind. Keep up and don’t get distracted again. We are _too_ close to fail now.”

She nodded, knowing that he couldn’t see her, and raised her Uzi back into firing position. With new strength, she fired into the horde as she and Coach steadily made their way forward, they hoped in the direction of Nick and Ellis.

On the right side of the bridge, they noticed two cars laying on their sides and making a convenient wall with just enough space between them for a single person to squeeze through.

“Over there! Get behind those cars!” Coach directed loudly, but she was already on her way there. With her small frame, she slipped through with ease; Coach wasn’t so lucky, and had more difficulty maneuvering his much larger form through the tight space.

“Come on, Coach! You can do it! Just suck it in!” she shouted, urging him on whilst thinning out the infected that were beginning to stream in from the opposite direction. He thrashed about madly and pushed on the cars with all the strength he could muster until he finally made it through, and the duo pushed onward as the majority of the swarm piled up behind them on the cars.

“Nick! Nick! Come on, man, say somethin’ will ya?!” Ellis’s frantic voice finally reached their ears, and they were reassured to know that they hadn’t gotten turned around in the madness. But that comfort was very short-lived when they realized that Nick was still missing.

They climbed atop a pile of debris between an overturned truck and an abandoned Humvee. From it, they could finally spot Ellis on top of a bus, his head jerking back and forth as he searched for their lost teammate. Just as she was about to call out his name, he caught sight of something to his right and raised his assault rifle, ignoring the horde clawing its way up to him.

“I got ya, Nick!”

She followed his line of sight to see Nick dangling limply from a high beam, suspended by the offending Smoker’s tongue. He was slowly being lifted higher and higher towards his captor, and she felt her stomach drop and the tears begin to well up again.

He was _so_ still.

She was horrified by the very real prospect that they were too late to save him. But even if he wasn’t dead, a drop from that height could very well kill him just the same. She could think of no alternatives, no third way out. They were to either leave him to die at the hands of a Smoker, or shoot him down and let him fall to his death.

Ellis, whether he had thought his actions through or not, pulled the trigger and brought an end to the Smoker, a cloud of noxious smoke trailing from its deflated corpse as it fell backwards off the beam, its tongue unraveling around its prey.

She instinctively screamed Nick’s name as she watched his limp body fall, time seeming to slow down once more. She was thankful that a broken concrete barrier had shielded her eyes from seeing him hit the ground.

She and Coach both took off at a sprint, but Ellis had beaten them there. His head was already upon Nick’s chest, searching for any signs of life by the time they had slowed to a halt. She steeled herself to hear a confirmation of the loss of Nick when Ellis surprised her. “He-he’s still alive! He’s still here!”

The look of hopeful joy on his face was a wonderful sight for her to behold in that moment. She felt her spirits rising and the tears continued to well, this time fueled by happiness instead of terror, pain, or despair.

She was amazed that anyone could survive the fall Nick had taken, and had thought of it as nothing short of a miracle. On the ship, it was explained to her that he had survived without major injury purely because he was unconscious, leaving his body loose and flexible. If he had been awake, he would’ve instinctively tensed up in preparation for the fall and made serious injury or death an almost guarantee. But even though there was scientific explanation as to why Nick survived, she still couldn’t entirely shake her belief that it was, in fact, a miracle.

She was reminded of the horde when she heard Coach begin to fire once again into it, and she quickly joined him in defending the other two from the infected as Ellis began pumping their friend’s chest and periodically performing mouth-to-nose, avoiding the blood running from a large cut on Nick’s lower lip and chin. It didn’t take long at all before he came to, wide-eyed and gasping desperately for air between hacking coughs.

She had never before felt such appreciation of Coach’s insistence that he teach them all how to perform CPR.

“There ya go. Good to have ya back, Nick,” Ellis said as he patted Nick’s back, his breathing still broken up by small coughing fits.

“O-okay, okay. I’m-I’m good.” Nick weakly held up a hand signaling Ellis to stop as he got to his knees. She listened as his gasping and coughing died off, and gave a sigh of relief.

“Alright y’all, we done wasted enough time. That helicopter’s gonna leave us if we don’t-“

Without warning, a crumpled car flew past them, cutting off Coach mid-sentence and sending Rochelle reeling back onto the ground out of shock. The next thing she knew, the Tank they had forgotten in their desperation to save Nick was barreling straight towards them, giant fists pounding the now-quaking bridge.

How she had missed its loud roars and the tremors below her feet, she would never know.

The next few seconds went by so fast that she could barely recall them as much more than a visual blur backed by Ellis’s screams of pain and terror. A fair amount of the scene had to be relayed to her by Nick and Coach. She was glad she couldn’t actually remember much of it. If she could, her recurring nightmares would likely be much, much worse.

The Tank didn’t flinch at the shells rapidly fired into its swollen flesh by Coach. Instead, it backhanded him to the ground in retaliation and punched a nearby car towards him to finish the job. It missed, but the Tank switched his focus to Ellis and Nick, much closer targets. Nick managed to crawl out of the Tank’s path just in time but Ellis tripped as he attempted to stand, giving the mutated creature just enough time to strike.

It showed no mercy this time as it punched him several feet away. It pursued its victim, this time grasping his leg before he could react and slamming him into the ground again before tossing him onto the hood of a car. When his body bounced off the car and fell to the concrete behind, the Tank turned its attention back to the others.

None of them remembered much from that point until they had made it onto the helicopter. The lightning-fast action and sheer terror was too overpowering.

She remembered that they all had begun to fire on the Tank. She remembered that the bridge had begun to collapse on one side. She remembered that the Tank had slid off the tilting bridge and fallen to the waters below. She remembered the immense feeling of relief after finding out that, like Nick after his fall, Ellis miraculously still had a pulse.

And she remembered fending off the horde with Nick while Coach walked Ellis, who was just barely conscious and clearly wracked with pain, most of the remaining distance to the helicopter, verbally encouraging him the whole way. He collapsed shortly after they made it to the off-ramp, and was carried the rest of the way by Coach and Nick. Once inside, they settled him on the floor of the helicopter and provided the best first aid they could with their remaining supplies, despite his miserable moans of protest after waking up enough to feel pain again.

Ellis looked so painfully broken. Removing his ruined yellow shirt revealed a bruised and bloodied torso, three ribs on his left side clearly protruding unnaturally outwards. His breathing was rapid and raspy, desperate and shallow; it was a sound that almost made her wish she really had gone deaf from the horde’s roaring.

Coach and Nick went to work cleaning the open wounds they found on his body while she attempted to clean the cut on his face. It had been bleeding badly enough that she thought he had lost his eye or completely cracked his skull open when she first saw him after the Tank was gone.

She ripped a piece off of his discarded shirt and pressed it to the wound, futilely trying to stop the bleeding. The speed at which his blood soaked through it and stained her battered hands frightened her almost as much as his breathing.

Every minute they spent on the helicopter felt like an hour to her. She struggled to hold back her tears, to appear stronger than she apparently was, if only to spare poor Ellis from seeing her so distraught during his dying moments. Her mind was hopelessly overrun with a single repeating train of thought:

_“We’re about to be a party of three. Ellis is going to die here. He’s not going to make it. We won’t get there in time. We were so close, but we failed him. Good-bye, Ellis. I’m so sorry.”_

She drowned out the rest of the world as those thoughts looped themselves over and over and over again in her head. She couldn’t stop them. She couldn’t even try. She just let them repeat, her hope once more fading away with each cycle.

But before she could register time properly in her mind again, the back door of the helicopter slowly opened and the sun’s light flooded the space, stinging her eyes. Military personnel stood outside, dressed in dark suits that covered them from head to toe. Their faces were obscured by gas masks and they all had their weapons steadily trained on them.

“Carriers, you are now on board the USS Gettysburg and are under military custody. Immediately place all of your belongings on the floor of the helicopter and slowly stand with your hands above your head. Do not make any sudden or violent movements, or we will not hesitate to open fire.”

* * *

Rochelle shook her head with a sigh as she tried to push the unsettling memories from her mind. The thought that she simply gave up the way she did, that she let her spirits drop so easily, still elicited stinging feelings of shame in her.

 _“There’s no point focusing on that now. It’s already done, and we’re all safe. The bad times are over,”_ she mentally reminded herself for the umpteenth time, only to realize that those words had no meaning anymore.

They _weren’t_ safe. They would never again be safe. It was too much to ask. They really had been condemned to spend the rest of their lives in a living hell.

She knew she would never escape the memories, the mental torture. She wondered if she would’ve been better off dying on the bridge. Then she wouldn’t have to suffer, neither physically nor mentally.

It would all be over for certain, then. She would finally have the peace she pined for…

She was abruptly pulled from being consumed by her raving and self-pitying thoughts by the sound of sickly coughing from the bed beside her. She put on the warmest smile she could for her wounded companion.

“Hey, Ellis,” she greeted sweetly, to which he responded with a weak smile and a flick of his hand.

“Hey, Ro.” His voice was horribly raspy and quiet, a sound that tugged at her heart and elicited all the feelings of pity that she could muster.

But she was resolved not to show that to him. He deserved better.

”So I see you’ve finally decided to rejoin the living again today.” He simply nodded tiredly in return, his eyelids drooping and his smile slowly fading as he appeared to lose the strength to hold them up.

It was difficult for her to maintain her own façade of contentment, perturbed as she was by someone so happy and excitable suddenly being painfully reduced to little more than a broken body. Even Coach and Nick, who were usually the ones to remark negatively about Ellis’s incessant talkativeness or stop his asinine Keith stories when he started to tell them, admitted that his silence was one of the hardest things for them to endure as they waited for his condition to improve.

“That’s good,” she said for the sake of speaking. Even though he was unable to speak much for himself, he seemed quite attentive when listening to others talk. “Is your pain medication holding up?”

She felt that talking helped her as well. It gave her an outward focus that temporarily blocked out the raging storm in her mind. It was the reason why she didn’t like to be alone, why she tried to keep herself with another person whenever possible.

“Eh…” He thought for a moment, gauging the pain levels in various parts of his body, shifting around very slightly as he tested out his extremities, the most mobile parts of him at the moment. “Alright, I guess,” he concluded, apparently not in exceptional pain at the moment.

“Good.” The room fell silent again as she thought of something else remotely pleasant to say, Ellis waiting patiently for her to continue. Her eyes flicked to the stiches on his forehead. “Did you know that those stiches on your head are coming out tomorrow?”

He tilted his head marginally, his expression becoming one that she read as vaguely perplexed. “On my head?”

“You did know that you had stitches there, right?” He looked upwards as if he were trying to see his own forehead for a moment before shaking his head. “Uh-uh.”

“Well, you do.” It was the closest he had yet gotten to his normal, goofy self, and she allowed herself to chuckle quietly in appreciation. “Right here,” she clarified as she traced a short line across her left eyebrow with her finger. He mouthed a silent “oh” before leaning back into his pillow. The room fell silent for another minute, and Rochelle forced herself to break it.

“God, I don’t see how in the world you sleep all day and night like this. I don’t sleep very much at all, and I’m so awake every day it’s to the point that it’s becoming a bit of a bother,” she half-lied to continue the conversation on an at least somewhat-positive note. She didn’t get very much sleep, that was most certainly true. Being awake and sufficiently aware of reality was the lie.

He simply answered her with a tired shrug.

She didn’t know whether or not her mask of warmth and strength really fooled Ellis. True, he was undeniably simple-minded at first glance. But over the week she had spent with him she had come to realize that even someone like him had hidden depths.

They were just difficult to really place without further observation.


	2. Soldiers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad news on an island. Bad news on a ship. Bad news has no boundaries.
> 
> Things are not as peaceful as they may have seemed for the survivors. They must come to terms with their new realities.

Nick walked quickly and quietly down the ship’s corridors, his eyes focused on the smooth floor and his bruised hands buried in the pockets of the drab khakis all carriers were made to wear. Heeding Rochelle’s advice, he avoided attracting any unnecessary attention from the soldiers that guarded the airlocks separating the quarantined quarters of the ship from the clean ones.

He normally made it a point to avoid the soldiers anyway, but the fact that he had specifically been advised to make himself inconspicuous unsettled him. He wondered if perhaps they had taken a step up in their usual carrier-persecuting activities, which were normally somewhat harmless.

They were notorious for singling out individuals on a whim and finding various ways to harass them, especially if other carriers were nearby. “You gotta make an example out of a few, show that disease-carrying lot that _we’re_ in charge, or you’re gonna lose control of every single one of those goddamned carriers faster than you can say ‘infected’,” as he had once overheard their reasoning crassly elaborated.

He hated those soldiers with a passion, and he had only been on the ship for four days. He wasn’t sure how long exactly he would be able to tolerate them before a stray insult managed to slip past his lips, and he consequently found out what exactly the punishment was for retaliating. He knew it couldn’t have been very pleasant, given that even the most resentful of carriers swallowed their pride and submitted quietly, and Rochelle’s warning only reinforced that notion.

Not even the carrier medical staff was safe from being mocked or threatened, something that he somehow wasn’t surprised to discover.

He found that out the second night they had spent on the ship. He was sitting alone at dinner but one of the nurses, a particularly young and attractive one, was sitting a few seats away on the opposite side of the table and picking dispiritedly at her tray. He noticed one of the soldiers nearby meandering up behind her, and said nothing.

He had been curious as to what the soldier would do to someone had had assumed up to that point to have some form of importance or protection as a crew member.

He kept his face downturned and continued to push around the slop on his tray, but listened intently as the soldier leaned onto the table and nonchalantly told her all of the ruthless and carnal things he would’ve done to her had she not been a carrier, speaking loudly enough to ensure that he was able to be heard by the room’s other occupants.

Two other soldiers stood behind him, snickering. Nick kept silent, watching out of the corner of his eye as her entire face flushed and a tiny whimper escaped her throat, but she gave no other response.

“Eh, sometimes I wish they were allowed to fight back. It’s not as fun when they just sit there and take it,” commented one of the observing pair.

“Yeah, no arguments there,” the one tormenting the nurse replied as he stood. “Let’s go.”

Before he left, he deftly slipped a gloved hand into the back of her thin shirt and snapped her bra strap audibly against her skin. She gasped when he did so, and the soldiers guffawed through their muffling masks as they moved into the nearest hallway, disappearing from sight.

The nurse promptly picked up her tray and sent it back to the kitchen before making her escape through a far door, her face buried in her arm and her sobs apparently too difficult for her to stem.

Nick was glad that she left; he hated listening to women cry. Besides, she had no real reason to cry in his opinion. The soldier wasn’t going to actually do anything he had said he would.

She was a carrier.

Nick learned that night that being a carrier was ironically the only protection he and all of his fellow survivors were going to get on the USS Gettysburg from the very people they had expected to save them without question. Or so he had thought.

He eventually reached the carriers’ cafeteria, pushing the double doors open to see that he really was late for dinner. _“Damn it.”_

He stepped inside the room only to have his senses abruptly assaulted with the sharp, head-filling scent of heavy-duty cleaning agents. He began to wrack his brain for possible explanations, but remembered Rochelle directing him to Coach for information.

Glancing around the cafeteria, he observed that some of the corner tables were misplaced, and the scent seemed to be emanating from their general direction. He turned his gaze to the center of the room to see that there was still one person seated, a full tray of what barely passed for food in front of his large form. The man looked up towards him as the doors clicked shut again, the small noise ringing out in the silence and echoing around the large space.

The man patted the side of the table across from him welcomingly. “Come on, Nick. Your supper’s gettin’ cold.”

“Thanks, Coach.” Nick sat across from the older man as he passed the tray across and leaned over onto his folded arms.

“Sorry we kept ya waitin’ so long. There was… a little bit o’ commotion in here earlier.” The hesitation in Coach’s voice didn’t escape Nick’s keen ears. He was now convinced of the severity of the event, even if he didn’t know what exactly it was.

“So I heard,” he said as he removed a plastic spoon from the small utensil package. “What kind of commotion?” He gathered up a spoonful of off-white mush and tasted it as he awaited Coach’s response, quickly regretting it as he forced the disgusting substance down his throat. Not only was it unappetizing like Rochelle had said, it was also unpalatably cold.

Coach glanced nervously to his right before he elaborated, bringing Nick’s attention to the lone soldier silently standing watch over them from against the wall. His stiff and bulky bodysuit muddled his body language and his gas mask gifted him the ultimate poker face, another reason why Nick disliked the ship’s ever-present military personnel. It was nigh impossible to read what they were thinking, what they were planning to do next.

This advantage they had over the conman was one he wasn’t used to, and the one he hated the most. Having weapons when he didn’t, he could handle. Having backup in the hundreds when he had only three people he knew for certain would stand behind him, he could handle. Being the guards while he was the prisoner, he could mostly handle.

But being unable to read them unnerved him to no end as one who had previously built his entire life upon being able to do just that to anyone he pleased. He felt so helpless in their presence, so robbed of his abilities.

He _hated_ it.

“Let’s just say that someone…. Wasn’t entirely willin’ to cooperate with the guards when they asked him to do somethin’ for ‘em.” He chose his words carefully and spoke quietly. Nick could tell that he wasn’t enjoying relating the event to him in front of the soldier, and didn’t press the issue. He could grill him for information later, when there were no soldiers around.

Coach took his silence as an opportunity to change the subject. “So… Anything happen with Ellis this afternoon?”

“No. He had a couple of coughing fits, that’s it. Didn’t really wake up.” They hadn’t been exceptionally large bouts of coughing, but they were enough to rouse Ellis into semi-consciousness and cause him visible pain until he passed out again.

Nick wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he never failed to find himself feeling genuine fear for his young friend when they occurred. He would snap back into reality immediately upon hearing them and prepare to call for help as he watched the mechanic being subjected to the torture of his own broken body.

He hadn’t had to alert the doctors yet, something that he took as a somewhat positive indication. It was evidence that Ellis’s condition wasn’t really worsening, at the very least.

Coach replied with a small grunt as he absentmindedly glanced around the room, avoiding making eye contact with the soldier. Nick tried forcing down the other unappealing portions of the meal, but found that none of it was remotely edible to him. He disappointedly dropped the spoon into the pale mush and washed the horrid gunk down with room-temperature water from a small plastic cup.

“I’m sorry, Coach. I know you stayed down here to save this for me, but I just can’t eat this.”

His elder held up his hand in sympathy. “I understand. It was hard for me to eat when it was _warm_.” The fact that Coach had difficulty eating it was an undeniable testament as to how awful the poor excuse for a meal was.

He picked up his tray and brought it to the tray return as Coach stood and stretched. Nick noted the fair amount of weight he had lost since their group first met in Savannah.

Back then, he had still been stuffing his rotund face with king-sized chocolate bars and packages of potato chips. Though Coach had made himself out to be a kind and supportive man in most other respects, his apprehension was only thinly-veiled when he had to share his precious junk food with his hungry teammates. Not to mention, his less-than-stellar health frequently caused them to stop and take risky breaks as he caught his breath and attempted to mitigate the growing ache in his injured knee with their steadily-dwindling supply of pain pills.

Nick remembered how disgusted and resentful he had been of the overweight man. He fully expected, and initially almost hoped, that the hypocritical health teacher would soon die of a heart attack, relieving the ragtag group of all of his perceived dead weight. But as Coach’s health improved, he demonstrated his abilities as a leader, and he earned Nick’s respect as a reliable teammate, he began to regret ever having such thoughts about him.

They left the cafeteria together and made their way to their sleeping quarters in silence, continuing to avoid garnering suspicion from the guards. When they made it to their cramped excuse for a room, they found their two roommates already there.

A spindly youth was lying on his bed, the lower one on the left set of bunks. He was staring quietly at the underside of the upper bed, his bony hands clasped over his chest. Seated on the floor against the small section of wall between the bunks was a man much closer in age to Nick. His knees were drawn up against his chest and he seemed to be studying them out of boredom.

“Alex, Rich. Y’all okay?” Coach asked as he sat on his own bed, the lower right bunk. It creaked and sagged under his weight, something that all of the beds did no matter who was in them. The carriers were evidently given the oldest and least supportive bunks to sleep on.

“Yeah, we’re okay, Coach,” answered Alex, the younger of the two. “Or at least, _I’m_ okay. Rich, are you okay?” He rolled onto his side and propped his head upon his hand.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” Rich replied gruffly, picking at a scab on his knee.

“Alright.” Coach stared at his folded hands for a moment and then looked up at Nick, who was leaning against one of the support poles of the bunks they shared. “Now that we ain’t gotta worry about no soldiers, I can tell ya what happened in the cafeteria.”

“What, he doesn’t know? How could anyone _not_ know?” Alex seemed utterly shocked that someone could’ve possibly not known of the incident, but changed his tune when he registered that Nick was the one still in the dark. “Although I guess that since you’re _you_ , I shouldn’t be too surprised that you missed something so obvious.”

Coach and Rich both glared at Alex, sensing the argument that was about to come about because of his unnecessary and haughty comment. The conman, unwilling to accept such disrespect from someone like Alex, purposefully took his bait to show him up.

“Well, unlike a certain lazy and useless piece of shit that I’m forced to share a room with, I was in the medical bay all this afternoon, actually doing something commendable.” Nick wasn’t incredibly fond of his mutually hateful antagonist, a fact that he didn’t bother to hide.

The boy was younger than Ellis by a few years and wasn’t quite as talkative, but Nick found him to be far more annoying. While Ellis insisted on telling incessant and pointless stories of his old buddy at the most inconvenient of times, at least he was useful to the group and could think of someone beside himself. Alex by contrast was intolerably selfish and spoiled, two traits even more unwanted in the current times.

“Oh, yeah. Because sitting around for hours by some dying dude’s bed is _so_ helpful. Don’t give me that crap.” His comment plainly struck a nerve inside of both Coach and Nick, and Rich jumped into action as he tried to smother the growing fire.

“Alex!” he growled as he stood from the floor. “Look, I know you insist on pissing Nick off as much as you possibly can, but don’t bring their friend into this. That’s crossing the line a little, don’t you think?”

“No, I _don’t_ think so, Rich. I’m just stating a fact. That… Eddie, or Eric, or whatever… He’s as good as dead.” The smug way he talked about Ellis while indifferently examining his revealingly neat fingernails left Nick seething. It took all of his self-control to keep himself from punching Alex square in the face. Even if doing so would’ve painfully irritated his bruised ribs, the satisfaction of seeing the smug brat clutching his bleeding nose and crying in pain would’ve been worth it.

“I’ve heard you two talking about how bad off he is. I personally don’t see why you don’t just pull the plug on him. He’s gonna kick the bucket soon anyway, so why prolong the inevitable?”

Before Nick could tell him off, Coach stepped in and attempted to smooth over the argument, evidently handling his anger in a much better manner. “It’s because we have _hope_ , Alex. We have hope that he’s gonna pull through,” Coach said calmly, trying to subdue himself just as much as he was trying to subdue Alex. “Is that so wrong?” His chosen counterargument didn’t serve quite the purpose he had hoped it would.

“Pffft. I had hopes of going to a good college and helping the world start over, but Nickie over there had no qualms with informing me of just how wrong _my_ hopes were,” he retorted, recalling a recent exchange where Nick had rather tactlessly torn down the boy’s naïve hopes for the future. His condescending and self-centered attitude was burning through Nick’s little remaining patience almost impossibly fast.

Rich knelt down beside the boy’s bed, looking like a tired father trying to reason with his upset child. “Alex, you should be able to recognize that those are two completely different things.”

“Oh, _of course_ they are. Whose side are you even on, Rich?” Alex folded his arms tightly, only making him look even more like a child.

Rich exasperatedly ran a calloused hand through his messy black hair. Dealing with Alex really was like dealing with an overgrown toddler sometimes. “I’m not on _any_ side. I just don’t want a fight breaking out in here, because then we’ll all end up like Marcus… You don’t want that either, now do you?”

Nick recognized the name and was able to connect it with a face; it was square, pock-marked, and always angry for some undisclosed reason. Nick had judged from his limited experience with him that he was quite an unpleasant character. He concluded that Marcus must’ve had something to do with the incident, having never heard mention of ending up like him before.

“Rich is right, son. Now let’s just put aside our differences before the guards hear somethin’ they don’t like and come bargin’ in,” Coach prompted, glad to have Rich there to help deal with Alex.

The boy silently averted his gaze as the rest of the room’s inhabitants stared him down expectantly. “… Fine,” he eventually mumbled, rolling over onto his opposite side and facing away from the others. Something about the way Alex resigned at the mention of the incident in the cafeteria struck Nick as odd. Now he was more curious than ever as to what had transpired.

After determining that the room’s youngest occupant was through causing trouble, Coach returned to the previous subject. “Anyway. Back to what I was sayin’.” He shifted on the bed to face towards Nick, the worn springs of the mattress screeching in protest.

Rich settled back into his seat on the floor, joining the discussion. “I’m personally not all that surprised you hadn’t heard about it, if you left the med bay without talking to any of the other carriers,” he remarked. “In fact, I wonder if the _medics_ even know anything about it, yet.”

“The first I had heard of anything happening was when Rochelle told me to watch out for the soldiers, but she didn’t specify why. She just told me to ask Coach.” He turned to look expectantly at his elder. “But even your explanation was pretty vague.” Rich grunted in response as he scratched his goatee.

“Well, you know who Marcus is, right? Tall guy, muscular, lots o’ pocks on his face.” Coach’s description rang the same bell as the name.

“Yeah, I think so. Always pissed off?”

“That’d be him,” Coach confirmed with a nod. “Everything happened at the beginning o’ supper. We were eatin’ like normal, nobody causin’ any trouble, and the guards weren’t actin’ too different than they usually do, either. Marcus was sittin’ off by himself, like he always does. But tonight, one o’ the soldiers felt the need to go up to him and ask him why he always sat alone. He told him that he just liked being to himself, and… Well, I guess the guard just didn’t like that answer.” He looked off to the wall as he remembered the scene.

“Huh. ’Didn’t like’ is an understatement,” interjected Rich, a bitter note to his voice.

“Yeah…” He continued to stare at the wall for a brief moment before looking back to Nick and continuing. “He told Marcus that he thought he was hidin’ somethin’, and ordered him to let himself be searched. Now, Marcus wasn’t none too happy ‘bout that, and said that he wasn’t gonna do it. ‘I ain’t hidin’ anything,’ he said. That guard called two more of his buddies over, and asked him if he would do it then. Marcus still said no and sat there. Just like a rock.

“Then, the first guard smacked him hard across the face with the butt of his gun, and Marcus went to work punchin’ the stew outta him. It took four of the other guards to hold him down, and several of the ones without somethin’ else to do just started kickin’ him and punchin’ him and beatin’ him with their own guns…” Coach looked down with his eyes closed and ran his hand over his bald head. “Shit… Even _I_ started to get sick from how long and hard they went at him.”

The room fell into silence as Nick imagined the event.

“… They didn’t look all that different from the zombies,” Alex commented somberly, still facing away from the group and curled into himself. Nick could tell from his voice that he was bothered by the event. Not surprising, considering that even adult men were shaken by it.

Nick didn’t quite feel sorry for Alex, but did register the pull of some strange emotion he couldn’t quite place. Before he could delve inside himself to identify it, Rich picked up the conversation.

“It was awful, Nick. You should be thankful you didn’t have to actually see it happen… By the time those bastards were done with Marcus, they had beaten him to death and then some.”

That caught Nick’s attention. “Wait, they actually _killed_ him?” The event was truly severe. Not only did they actually cause physical harm to a carrier with what seemed to be very minimal provocation, they had murdered him. Nick now knew what the punishment for retaliating against the soldiers was, and he fully understood why most everyone simply fell in line.

“They sure as hell did… Blood was fucking _everywhere_. All over the walls, the floor, the ceiling…” Rich slowly shook his head. “The soldiers were covered in it too, but none of them ran off straight to be decontaminated. I guess the thrill of killing a carrier was all they cared about, possible holes in their suits be damned.” He sighed and repositioned himself comfortably against the wall. “But I guess that since the ship’s not swarming with zombies, those suits are pretty damn reliable after all.”

“Mm-hmm,” Coach quietly concurred before continuing. “After they decided they were through beatin’ him, they checked his pulse and declared him dead without even tellin’ the doctors. They just got a bed sheet, wrapped poor Marcus up in it, and carried him right out the door.”

Rich crossed his arms and legs. “We don’t know for sure what they did with his body, but we reckon they just tossed him overboard.”

“So who cleaned up the mess?” Nick asked, doubting that the soldiers did it themselves.

“Not long after they got him out, they made the cooks clean up while they lectured the rest of us about how the same thing would happen to us if we ignored their orders. They held us in there until the mess was completely gone, which is why Ro was so late getting’ to ya.”

Nick sighed as he took everything in, absentmindedly picking at the stiches across his chin. “So. First, the military starts shooting carriers trying to get into safe zones. Then, they decide it’s better not to immediately kill us and drop all survivors they can find off onto this goddamn boat in the middle of the ocean. Then, they take care of us and make sure that we feel safe and welcome. But _now_ they kill off the ones that just slightly piss them off. Just what in the hell do these bastards even _want_ with us? If they wanted us dead, they could’ve shot us on sight like they had been or kept on abandoning us and hoping that the zombies would get rid of us for them.”

“I’ve just kinda come to the conclusion that this is their way of punishing us for being carriers,” Rich replied sourly. “So _what_ if we’re the best hope humanity has left, essentially being immune to the apocalypse and all? We accidentally spread the Green Flu to some people who were probably gonna get it eventually anyways, and that automatically makes us criminals. Traitors.”

Nick sneered in agreement. The feeling of being spurned by society was a feeling he was already deeply familiar with.

“Hell, non-immunes have even gotten the idea in their heads that either we’re a special kind of zombie that doesn’t go batshit crazy, or that we have a strain that doesn’t turn us for weeks on end even though everyone else turns within an hour.” He scoffed. “No doubt, the military started that bullshit as propaganda to make sure that everyone still uninfected considers _us_ the enemy.”

No one could really argue with Rich’s logic. It made a fair amount of sense, given that the larger percentage of the human population apparently wasn’t immune. No matter which group of people had the better chance of survival in the grand scheme of things, leave it to whatever was left of the United States government, and quite possibly every other government left with some semblance of power, to decide that it would look much better for public relations to persecute the useful few, rather than the doomed many.

* * *

Zoey picked the last scraps of tender meat from the small pile of bones on the tin plate in front of her, and reveled in the wonderful feeling of a full stomach as she hungrily slurped down the tiny shreds of flesh.

“I can already tell a difference from when you first cooked fish, Louis. These taste amazing.” She licked her fingers clean and unfolded her crossed legs, which were falling asleep. She noted the stubble covering both of them as she absentmindedly scratched at a scab on one, and realized she no longer felt any shame at the minor self-grooming deficiency.

She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to be happy or disgusted with herself.

“Thanks! I tried out some different seasonings this time. We’re lucky the people who prepared the boat thought to include so much.” Louis smiled at the compliment and asked the pickiest of the three for his opinion as well. “What about you, Francis?”

“What about me?” the biker retorted with his mouth full, still working on the largest of the fish. Small flecks of the meat had collected in his beard as he greedily devoured the fish, and the analyst tried to ignore it. He hoped that his growing whiskers didn’t look similarly grubby.

He knew that he likely wasn’t going to get an incredibly positive response from pessimistic Francis, but asked again anyway. “Do you think I’m getting better at cooking fish?”

“Eh. You’re not getting _worse_ at it, I guess.” Francis took a large, shredding bite, causing even more scraps to fall to his beard.

Louis merely shook his head at his typical answer. “Why do I even bother?”

“Yeah. Why _do_ you bother, Louis? Bothering is more trouble than it’s worth.” Francis finally finished tearing away at the whole fish, and proceeded to begin picking through its bones.

“I guess it’s just in my nature.” Louis shrugged as he stared into the dancing orange flames in front of him.

Their energetic and mystical performance reminded him of an obscure musical he had seen once as a child with his music-loving parents. He could remember neither the name of it, nor the plot, nor even any of the tunes from it. He could just see the beautiful dancers gracefully moving about the stage in their glittery costumes, and he mentally filled in the silence with simple melodies of his own creation.

Francis examined an interestingly-shaped bone before flicking it into the fire, like an unruly audience member tossing his trash onstage. “Well, your nature sucks ass.”

Louis rolled his eyes and sighed. “Yeah, you’ve told me.” He turned his gaze upwards while twiddling his fingers, his hands resting in his lap.

The sky was a rich navy, with not a cloud in sight. The stars twinkled magically like flakes of diamond and the moon shone bright and silver and full, rather like a spotlight. The waves sang their gentle and hushed song, and the crackling fire provided its own erratic beat to match its performers’ unpredictable dance.

Zoey, done picking through the remains of her meal, laid back onto the warm sand to join Louis in stargazing. “The sky is really beautiful tonight,” she quietly noted as she folded her hands over her stomach.

“Yeah, it is.”

The trio settled into a pensive silence, each absorbed into themselves as if the others had never been there at all. Zoey began counting the stars, and lost track quite a few times. Whenever she realized that she had counted certain ones twice or skipped over an entire section, she would start back over without complaint, happy to have something to occupy her mind.

Then, slowly and unwittingly, she found herself converting the stars into infected she had killed.

The innocent and sparkling specks of light morphed into the screaming and hideous and mutilated creatures that charged at her relentlessly in her sleep, desperately tearing away at her and pulling her away from safety. She counted the thousands of human beings that didn’t have the good fortune to be immune like her.

Or could it even be considered fortunate to be immune? On the one hand, one didn’t devolve into a hideous, bloodthirsty beast that ran on only the most primal of animal instincts, thinking only to kill and to eat. But on the other, the world’s remaining trials become so much harsher when the most imminent threat is the least of one’s worries.

Danger. Danger is everywhere. Almost no place on Earth is free from something, or someone, that only desires to kill. Whether it be ferocious beasts or desperate humans, the threat of death is omnipresent.

Hunger. Not knowing how to capture and prepare an animal or grow and gather edible plants spells certain doom when one can no longer subsist on processed junk. Not knowing when one’s body would submit to starvation and torturously consume itself is a terrifying thought for people who had never experienced famine.

Pain. Even something as seemingly harmless as a small cut can turn into a life-threatening affliction without proper medical care. A broken bone or maimed limb can heal incorrectly, leaving a victim permanently disabled and a liability to anyone trying to help them. Leftover illnesses and injuries from before the Green Flu, previously stabilized by medicines and therapies, are now free to take over their victim’s body.

Insanity. Whether it’s the simply the stress of witnessing the end of the world or the overwhelming silence from the lack of normal human interaction that is to blame, going mad is a very real possibility for anyone. Not even people in a group and protected in a safe zone or on an island are immune to losing their minds.

Suffering. Everyone suffers in some way. Whether it is the pain of an injury or the regret of a fatal mistake, the loss of a loved one or the longing for the past, suffering has an iron grip upon what’s left of humanity and doesn’t intend to let go.

Lost in her thoughts, she felt her own suffering swallowing her whole and suffocating her. She struggled against the darkness closing in on her, wishing for it to go away. She just wanted peace. She just wanted to live her pointless life. She just wanted to be free from death.

Why couldn’t she just let go of what plagued her so horribly?

“Hey, Louis. I think your fish is makin’ Zoey sick.”

She quickly opened her eyes at the sound of Francis’s voice, and lights jumped wildly about in front of her vision as she registered her surroundings. She had been scrunching them noticeably tightly, and her knuckles were white from clenching her fists so strongly that her untrimmed fingernails had been digging into her palm.

“Zoey? Are you okay?” Louis looked at her worriedly as he gently laid a hand upon her shoulder. She could feel herself shaking, and inwardly cursed herself for being so pathetic.

She sat up and began to knock sand loose from the back of her once-white tank top, attempting to save face. “Y-yeah. I’m fine. Of course, I’m fine. Why… Why wouldn’t I be?” Showing weakness was embarrassing enough. She couldn’t let them worry unnecessarily about her. The bad times were over, she just needed to move on and forget. It’s what she had been trying to do ever since they made it to the island.

“Well for one thing, you ate Louis’s fish.”

 _“Oh, great. On top of almost having a mental breakdown, I get to listen to them argue,”_ she thought, wrapping one arm around her waist and propping her head upon the opposite hand.

Francis stood and brushed the sand from the seat of his pants as Louis glared at him. “Francis, can you please be serious for just a minute?”

“I _am_ bein’ serious!” The biker moved around the fire to his companions, his tattooed arms crossed sternly.

“It’s kinda hard to take you seriously when you’re pretty much blaming _me_ for the problem, when you were the one who-”

“Look, can both of you please just shut up?” Zoey interrupted harshly, not happy to be in the middle of a fight between them. She turned her gaze downward and ran a hand through her hair with a sigh before looking back to them. “I’m sorry I snapped. But I just… I need some time to think.”

She got to her feet as quickly as she could, ignoring Louis as he reached up to stop her. The men watched silently as she jogged over to the beached sailboat and clambered inside without a word. They knew what she was doing. She always did it when she got upset.

Zoey slunk below deck and maneuvered around the remaining supplies to the back left corner of the cabin, ducking slightly to avoid hitting her head on the low roof. She quickly spied two cardboard boxes atop a small plastic chest.

She picked the boxes up and set them aside before opening the chest to reveal what it protected. She procured a folded piece of ragged and stained pink cloth, her track jacket, and then gently unwrapped it to uncover the one object in the world that she truly treasured.

A well-worn green beret, speckled with mud and slightly grayed with age.

She settled down next to the chest, tenderly cradling Bill’s beret in her hands as if jostling it in the slightest would cause it to disappear or crumble away into dust. She began to delicately trace the shield-shaped golden patch with her finger as she studied the silver pin upon it for the umpteenth time.

She admired the attention to detail on the small piece of metal. The ribs on the hilt of the central sword, the texture on the vanes of the crossed arrows, all were beautifully rendered. The silver had long since dulled to a light gray, but she imagined how beautiful it would look freshly polished and shimmering in the light.

“ _De oppresso liber_ ,” she whispered, reading to herself the motto engraved on the ribbon flowing elegantly around the sword and arrows.

She had never asked Bill what the motto meant. In fact, she had never even paid enough attention to his hat to notice that there was one at all. Only once she held it in her own beaten hands did it make itself known to her.

Only once he was no longer able to tell her its meaning did she wonder.

She could easily infer that the motto had something to do with liberty and oppression, and tested out possible translations. “Liberty to the oppressed. Liberate the oppressed… Liberation of the oppressed…?” She shook her head and pushed a stray lock of brunette hair back behind her ear. “I guess it doesn’t matter which one it is. They’re all pretty much the same thing.”

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, listening to the waves beat slowly and quietly against the hull of the tiny boat. “They all really are the same thing.”

 _“Well if they mean the same thing, then why the hell are you drivin’ yourself crazy tryin’ to tell ‘em apart?”_ When she opened her eyes, she saw a familiar figure sitting calmly in front of her, looking at her expectantly with his piercing blue eyes.

“I don’t know, Bill. Gimme a break.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them, laying her head atop them tiredly. “I have to think about something that doesn’t involve zombies, or death, or pain, or… Or the past.”

He pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and held it in his mouth as he rummaged in his pant pocket for his lighter. _“… Zoey. You’re tryin’ too hard. The more you try to not think about somethin’, the more likely you are to think about it.”_

He finally found the lighter and brought it up to light the cigarette. She watched him for a moment, studying the cloud of smoke he exhaled as it floated about him aimlessly. “I know. I just… I can’t help it, Bill. Whenever I don’t try, I end up going back to all of that stuff anyway… And it’s awful. I hate it.”

 _“That’s ‘cause even if ya think ya aren’t, you’re still tryin’. And you’re not even tryin’ to_ forget _, you’re tryin’ to cover up, to hide from what you don’t like.”_ He gestured to her as he spoke, like a father trying to explain a lesson to his daughter.

And like a father comforting his daughter, his expression softened as she internalized his words, and he placed a calloused hand upon her arm. _“You just gotta move on, kid. I know it’s hard, but you just gotta let go of all the bad shit that bothers ya. You’ll be a whole lot better for it, I promise.”_

“I’m trying to. I really am… You know I am. It’s just… I don’t know if I can even do it… I’m starting to think that it’s _too_ hard. That it’s impossible.” She looked away as she said the last word.

 _“Nothin’s impossible, Zoey.”_ His hand moved from her arm to her face, and he turned her towards him. _“You’re too strong to let bad thoughts trip you up like that. So cheer up and smile.”_ The way he encouraged her gave her strength, rekindled the smoldering fire within her. She cracked a small smile as he pulled his hand away and exhaled another puff of smoke.

“’Nothing’s impossible’, huh? Well, what about you coming back to life? Because that would be pretty nice.” He laughed quietly, shaking his head.

_“You know what I mean.”_

She chuckled as she closed her eyes. When she reopened them, she was once again alone, the waves still thumping the boat from outside.

She looked down at the battered hat in her hands. “Just look at me, Bill. I’m pretty pathetic, aren’t I? Talking to your hat and pretending it’s you… You’re not even entirely in-character…” She pulled the beret to her chest with a tired sigh. “God… I guess I’m going crazy after all.”

“Y’know, you wouldn’t look so crazy if you were actually talkin’ to someone who was still alive.”

She jerked her head upwards to see Francis standing in the doorway, his hands in his pockets and a surprisingly solemn expression on his face.

Her face flushed brightly and she hugged Bill’s beret even closer. “Francis… How… How long have you been-”

“Long enough to know that you _really_ need to talk to someone besides Bill’s dirty old hat.” He stepped inside and navigated the room’s contents, bent almost comically forward to fit under the short ceiling. When he reached her personal corner he plopped down in front of her with a grunt, one hand on his hip.

“So where do ya wanna start?” She merely looked at him, her eyebrows slightly furrowed. “Look. I’m in a good mood, so I’m willin’ to play therapist for ya tonight. This is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I’d take it if I were you.” She was angry at him for carelessly barging in upon her as he did, but at the same time was touched and surprised by his apparent thoughtfulness.

But she was still mostly angry. “Francis, why did you come down here?”

“Oh, well obviously it’s because I like to come down here and talk to the boxes. They’re fucking _riots_ , man. You really need to listen to ‘em some time. They’re much better conversation than Bill’s stupid hat.”

She glowered slightly at him, prompting him to lighten up on his sarcasm. “Look, Zo. Believe it or not, you’re not the only person who has problems on this godforsaken island. Louis has plenty of ‘em, too.” She raised an expectant eyebrow. “Hell, even _I_ might have a little problem or two. I know it’s hard, but sometimes you just gotta, y’know, swallow your pride and talk to someone. And unfortunately for you, Bill’s hat doesn’t count as ‘someone’.”

Her gaze drifted slowly back down to the beret in her hands, and she sighed. “I know… Thanks, Francis.”

“Don’t mention it… And I’m serious, really _don’t_ mention it.” He raised one hand to the side of his face and whispered as if hiding a secret from the boxes. “My reputation’s already in enough trouble.”

She tittered quietly at his seriousness. “Sure thing, tough guy. But only on one condition.”

The biker narrowed his eyes at her in suspicion. “What?”

“Don’t ever call Bill’s hat ‘stupid’ again.” She warmly gave him a lopsided grin, but he knew that she wasn’t joking.

“Sure thing, crazy chick.” He placed a hand on her knee and gave her a small, playful shove. He was happy to see her cheering up somewhat.

“Ah, stop it you big softie.” She pushed on him with her foot in return, but was unable to move him even an inch. He was still a wall of solid muscle, just like when she first met him.

“Don’t push it.” And he was still just as conscious of his image.

She laid Bill’s hat in her lap and raised her hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. I’m ready for my therapy session, Dr. Powell.”

He looked up and to the side while scratching his chin thoughtfully. “Huh. Dr. Powell. I actually kinda like the sound of that. Maybe I _should_ have gone to college.” He sat in thought for a brief moment before waving the idea away with his hand. “… Nah. Never mind, college is too much work.”

“I know, right?” She felt the twinge of pain and longing return as she remembered how she had spent her first semester of college. She remembered her parents, how they argued over her future. She remembered the last dinner they shared, which had been interrupted by the first infected she had ever seen.

And she remembered telling her father that she loved him right before she planted a bullet in his forehead.

“I… I think I know where to start now.”

“Okay. I’m all ears.” He leaned back, settling in for a lengthy story.

“I think I want to start with the night that this whole thing really kicked off for me…” He watched her in silence as she collected her thoughts. “That was the night that my parents-”

“Francis! Zoey!” came Louis’s frantic shouting as he limped down into the cabin, eyes wide and fearful.

“Goddammit Louis, I thought you were too much of a pussy to come down here and actually-”

The analyst ignored Francis, much more pressing matters on his mind. “You guys. There’s something you need to see, _right now_.”

“What is it, Louis?” Zoey was rather unsettled by the look of horror on his face. It wasn’t too different from when he had first laid eyes on a Tank.

Something as frightening as a Tank couldn’t possibly be good news.

“Just… Just come and look for yourselves.” He disappeared onto the deck of the boat, Francis and Zoey quickly jumping to their feet and following behind him.

When they arrived topside, Louis was already standing at the stern of the sailboat and looking intently out to sea. The pair joined him and scanned the ocean for signs of trouble.

“What the hell’s wrong? I don’t see anything,” Francis said impatiently.

“Look out there. Not far from the horizon.” Louis pointed in the direction of the disturbance, directing his companions to look out and slightly to the east.

“Oh my God…,” was all that could escape Zoey’s lips when she finally laid eyes upon a great ship sailing in the distance. It was a huge ship, and none of them doubted that it belonged to the military. “Do you think they came here to set up a base or something?”

Louis sighed. “I wouldn’t doubt it. I’m pretty sure there’s a fort nearby.”

“You’re shittin’ me…” Francis stumbled backwards slightly as he registered the fact that the military was in the Keys with them. “Goddammit, you are fucking shitting me!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, his hands thrown up in the air in rage.

Louis and Zoey did nothing to stop him as he stomped furiously and kicked the side of the cabin. The pain that consequently shot up his leg only served to further incense him, and he began to growl deeply, unable to express his anger in any other way.

Zoey couldn’t hide the fact that she was terrified. They had come so far, fought so hard. They had made it to safety at the cost of a friend’s life. And now that they had gotten through the hardships and thought they had finally escaped both their infected enemies and their uninfected ones, they find the military on their doorstep. She wanted to scream, to cry, to shoot herself then and there.

Instead, she turned to Louis. “What are we gonna do?” Her voice was quivering, but she didn’t care anymore.

Louis seemed frozen as he stared out at the ocean. The only movement she could see was his clothing whipping about in the wind. After a lengthy silence, he finally spoke. “I… I don’t know what we’re gonna do…”

“Oh, God…” Zoey sat on the guardrail, pressing her hands against her face as if doing so would give her the solution to their problem. As if it would wake her up from her latest nightmare. “We can’t stay, or they’ll find us and do God-knows-what with us… But if we leave, where are we gonna go?”

“… I don’t know…”

She remembered that she still had Bill’s beret gripped in her trembling hands. She held it out where she could see it and her eyes reflexively fell upon the silver pin. “… We need Bill, Louis… We really need Bill…”

“… I know we do…”

His slow and hopeless answers frightened her almost as much as the ship itself. “Louis, please _talk_ to me.”

“… I don’t have anything to say, Zoey… I’m sorry…” He leaned over onto the guardrail and covered his own face.

“Goddammit…,” she whimpered as she pressed Bill’s beret against her face. It soaked up the hot tears she futilely attempted to withhold as they streamed down mercilessly. “Goddammit, goddammit, goddammit…”

There really was no such thing as hope. If there ever was, it was no longer alive. It died the moment Zoey pulled the trigger on her father.

No. It didn’t die with him. It died in Rayford, when three Tanks smashed it to a bloody pulp.

Hope was an old man. Hope was a soldier. Hope was a leader. Hope was a second father to her. Hope’s real name was William Overbeck.

She held the last remnant of hope in her hands, but it just wasn’t going to be enough to save them this time.


	3. Captivity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sun sets on an island. The sun rises on a ship. The sun works in mysterious ways.
> 
> Even the best plans don't always play out as they were intended. Some of the survivors must make a difficult decision.

The despairing trio waited in silence as the ship continued to sail east and eventually disappeared behind the small hills and waving palms of their own island. Zoey’s remaining tears, the first ones she had cried since they left Rayford, had poured out until there were none left, and Francis finally managed to calm himself down just enough for coherent thought.

“So, what now?” he irritably asked his companions. “Anybody got anymore _bright_ ideas to share?” The silence returned without pause, neither of them bothering to answer him.

He turned to Louis, the one who never failed to have a positive remark to give his teammates. “Come on. You don’t have _anything_ in that optimistic head of yours, Louis?” Despite the patronizing tone of his words, he secretly hoped that Louis _did_ have a plan of some sort. Some way to make things seem better than they actually were.

He saw the analyst tense up at his comment, still leaned over onto the railing and holding his head in his hands. He refused to turn and look at the biker as he spoke. “… Look, I’m trying. Just… Give me some time…”

Francis, already riled, wasn’t pleased to have to wait for their next plan of action. “Well in case you didn’t notice, we ain’t exactly got a whole lot of that _left_. If the military catches us here, they’ll-”

“I _know_ , Francis! I know!” Louis whirled about, startling both Francis and Zoey. The anger that flashed in his dark eyes was frighteningly uncharacteristic of the normally upbeat and sanguine man, the closest likeness to it only appearing when he was absorbed into the bloody rhythm of combat. But it disappeared as quickly as it had flared up, and his body relaxed as he sighed and ran a tired hand across his scalp. “… I know that we’re in trouble. I know that we should’ve already had a plan B…” He looked up at Francis, clearly upset. “I know that our options are pretty _goddamn_ limited.”

Francis stared at Louis, unsettled by the display of emotion. There was not a single shred of doubt left within him of the situation’s severity. He glanced at Zoey, who appeared similarly disturbed.

Louis was their rock of positivity. When the world seemed to be crashing down around them and nothing seemed to even remotely be in their favor, Louis was always there to bring their attention to something positive, obscure and trivial as it might seem. A situation that managed to upset Louis was truly dire.

“So how about you try and _help_ us come up with something, Francis?” The analyst weakly slid down the railing to sit upon the deck of the boat. “All suggestions are welcome.” He pulled his uninjured leg up to his chest and gazed somberly at the deck as he resumed attempting to come up with a plan with even the smallest chance of success.

His mind instantly jumped to the idea of sailing back to the mainland. He tried to push it away, attempted to come up with anything that didn’t involve throwing themselves back at the mercy of the hordes. But what choice did they have? What other option could possibly exist?

Francis, sharing similar thoughts, was the one to actually voice the idea as he leaned against the wall of the cabin and heaved a sigh. “We can’t stay here… That’s for sure. Looks to me like the only thing we _can_ do is… Go back.”

Zoey joined Louis on the deck, still cradling Bill’s hat for its empty reassurance. She wanted anything in the world but to go back to fighting, having had more than enough of what horrors were left on the mainland. “But if we go out to sea, we could… You know… Find another island. Maybe one the military wouldn’t want to use.” As soon as the words escaped her mouth, she knew how ridiculously naïve and foolish they sounded.

Any uninfected part of the world automatically belonged to the world’s governments and militaries. They needed every little piece of clean land they could possibly find to get a foothold to try and push back the zombie menace from. Carriers were no better than the infected themselves as far as non-immunes were concerned, and were relegated to trying to eke out a living amongst their bestial “brethren”.

“I… I really don’t want to admit it… But I think Francis is right, Zo. The mainland probably is our best bet. We have no idea how well this thing could handle a bad storm.” Louis knocked on the deck, listening to the sound of the wood. It was strong, but the small boat had yet to be rigorously tested as they had experienced mostly smooth sailing on the way to the Keys.

Zoey solemnly dropped her eyes to the deck, prompting Louis to shift over to her and lay a hand upon her shoulder. “I know it’s gonna be hard to go back, Zoey. I really do. But which option do you think Bill would take?” She glanced at the beret in a moment of silence, knowing full well what he would’ve done.

He would’ve much rather returned to war than let himself become a prisoner of peace.

She sighed and kept her eyes trained on the deck. “Okay… You’re right…,” she mumbled in resignation. The trio sat in silence for a brief moment. “So how long do you think it’s gonna take for us to get everything back on the boat?” She finally turned her gaze back upwards and gestured lightly to the shed they had moved into with most of the supplies.

The analyst silently calculated the time requirement. “About an hour if we work fast, two at the most.”

Francis, anxious and more than ready to move forward with the plan, quickly called for action. “Alright, ladies. Enough chit-chat,” he said as he moved towards the bow of the sailboat. “We got our plan, so let’s get packin’.”

* * *

“Okay, is that everything?” Louis asked Zoey as she handed him one more of the many boxes they had stored in the staff building.

“I think so,” she replied, turning back to see Francis hauling a large crate on his shoulder.

He reached the sailboat and propped the crate on the siding before pushing it up to Louis on the bow. “Yeah, this is it for boxes. You go get the guns, Zoey. Once we have those onboard, we should be able to haul ass.” She nodded lightly and sprinted back into the building.

“Looks like we just might make it outta here after all,” the analyst commented, his positivity having returned after the initial shock wore off. He hauled the crate aboard once Francis released it from his own grip, and briefly leaned over it to rest his leg.

“Don’t jinx us, man,” the biker said as he procured the larger of two logs lying beside the vessel, collected from the destroyed remains of a nearby dock. “Remember how badly your optimism jinxed us at the bridge.” He planted it firmly at a low angle underneath the starboard side of the hull.

“Hey. We got out of Rayford, didn’t we?” Louis began to move the crate into the cabin.

“Yeah, but what did we lose?” Francis then picked up the smaller log and pushed it under the port side. Louis gave no answer as he continued to push the crate.

Zoey jogged back to her companions, loaded down with what was left of their weapons. Her hunting rifle was strapped to her shoulder, Francis’s shotgun was tucked under her right arm, and a dirty duffle bag was hanging from her left with three pistols, a Magnum, and their remaining ammunition tucked inside. “Got ‘em.”

She handed them up to Louis before turning to assist Francis. “Alright, you take that one,” he said, pointing at the smaller log before turning his gaze to Louis on the bow. “You might wanna hold onto something up there, Skipper.”

“Don’t worry about me,” the analyst replied with a dismissing wave of his hand. “I’ll be fine as long as you don’t flip the boat.”

“Whatever.” Francis focused on the task at hand, and firmly grasped the log. “We’re gonna push ‘em up on three. Got it?”

“Got it,” Zoey returned with another nod. She widened her stance, planted her bare feet on the sand, and made sure that she had a strong hold.

“One… Two… Three.” On his command, she pushed the log up with as much strength as she could muster. Francis made sure not to push too much and tip over their one shot at survival, but she gave it more than he thought she could with her thin frame. He was impressed, but not exactly surprised.

Perhaps it was simply because surviving the apocalypse had the potential to make anyone strong. Maybe it was her sheer determination to escape and live another day, or to at least not let her friends down. Or it could’ve even been that it was to try and live up to what they could only assume would’ve been Bill’s expectations. Whatever the cause, he was pleased to see her sufficiently planted in reality.

They both pushed until the logs were completely vertical, and the boat was pushed back a couple of feet. “I think one more go oughta do it,” Louis encouraged from the deck after examining the ship’s location, now holding onto the railing for balance. Zoey sighed and shook out her arms as Francis replanted the logs, and they both readied themselves for another attempt at unbeaching the boat.

Francis counted down, and again they pushed against the logs until they felt the sudden release as the vessel escaped the grasp of the sand and floated successfully in the waves.

Zoey dropped her log with a relieved sigh and clambered onto the deck, water and wet sand sliding off her feet as they were lifted up. Francis continued to push the boat a little farther out before climbing in himself, Louis already working on opening up the red sails. After a few minutes of fiddling, they unfurled and caught the wind as it pushed them out to sea and away from the island they had originally worked so hard to reach.

Louis studied the compass mounted on the dash and oriented the boat to the north. “As long as we keep going north, we’re guaranteed to hit the mainland,” he said, only to be answered with the tense silence of his companions.

Francis stood at the bow, scanning their surroundings for any sign of the military. Zoey was seated near Louis at the helm, nervously twiddling her fingers.

“Hey. It’s gonna be alright, Zo,” he assured her after watching her rapidly glance about and finger her tangled hair to occupy herself for several minutes. “I promise we’re gonna make it out of here.” He gave her a warm smile that earned a fleeting half-smile in return, but she remained silent and anxious.

If the situation weren’t so pressing and he had a steering lock, he would’ve sat down with her and picked up where Francis had left off in his attempt to get her to open up, to unload some of her evidently very heavy emotional baggage. But he supposed there would be time for that once Francis took over steering.

He kept his eyes trained on the horizon ahead, occasionally glancing at the compass to keep the boat on track. The group was still locked in that wary quiet, the singing ocean and the flapping of the sails in the wind providing the ambience. The stars and moon shone down steadily, bathing the night in cool blues and purples.

Suddenly, Francis interrupted the calm with his face drawn into an intense frown. “Hey. They’re here.” He pointed out to starboard, drawing his companions’ attention to a yellow spotlight backlighting the trees and dunes of their island.

“Oh, shit…” Louis kept the boat going forward, willing for the wind to carry them faster, but felt his hope fading away once again despite his efforts to sustain it. He glanced at Zoey, who was staring wide-eyed, fear clearly drawn on her dirty face.

She said nothing to anyone and pressed her lips tightly together. He noticed her shuddering slightly, her arms wrapped tightly around herself and clenching the sleeves of her filthy jacket. She was terrified, and with good reason.

Who knew what the military would do to them this time around?

The spotlight slowly passed over the island until it reached the end and shone straight down upon the undulating ocean, revealing a great ship as its source not long after, most likely the same one from before. The survivors looked on as the spotlight scanned the waves for any signs of carriers or infected, each passing sweep coming closer and closer to them.

The nearer it drew, the more distraught Zoey visibly became. When it was no more than twenty feet from them, she could take no more. She jumped to her feet, ran down the steps into the cabin, and curled up in the back left corner.

She pulled Bill’s hat from the pocket of her jacket and clutched it to her trembling chest. The beaten up beret was cold comfort, but it was all she could think to do to keep herself from breaking down and jumping straight into the ocean. Already, the despondent and self-pitying thoughts were playing over and over in her head, a pathetic broken record.

_Why? Why did everything have to go so wrong? Why did the world have to go to hell? Why did my family have to die? Why did anyone have to die? Why couldn’t we have been safe here? Why did I have to go through this? Why couldn’t I have just died like everyone else?_

Zoey held the beret out in front of her for one last examination before bringing it back to her body once more.

_Why did you have to leave me, Bill?_

On deck, Francis and Louis continued to watch the spotlight search for them. When the dreaded moment finally arrived that the light fell upon them, it was far too late to turn back to the island to attempt to hide amongst the foliage like pursued animals. They faintly heard an alarm blare on the ship, and they could only continue to press the ship onward.

They could only hope that somehow things would work out.

Within minutes, a patrol boat could be seen coming rapidly towards them, the spotlight trained on them continuously. It stopped a fair distance from them, however, and neither Francis nor Louis could tell what the soldiers onboard were doing, being hidden behind a small wall of metal plating.

They waited and waited for the soldiers to make their move, but that move never came. “Fuck this shit. Louis, where’d Zoey put the guns?” Francis growled as he left his post at the bow.

Louis still continued to cling desperately to the hope that everything would somehow be okay. “Francis, what in the hell are you thinkin’?! You shoot at them, there’s no doubt they’re gonna shoot back!”

Francis continued to stalk around the cabin in search of his shotgun. “What the hell makes you think they’re not gonna shoot us anyway?! I’d at least like to go down knowin’ that I took the first shot!”

Louis finally left the helm to get between the angry biker and the inside of the cabin. “Francis! They could be trying to see if they can establish communication with us!” The analyst stood his ground as Francis stared him down, rage the only visible expression. “Or they might be-“

“Louis, have I ever told you that you’re too nice for your own damn good? It’s time to wake up!” Much to Louis’s surprise, Francis pushed him back and into the side of the cabin. The imposing man stood over the lankier one threateningly.

“They. Are here. To take. Us. Out.” He punctuated each segment with a jabbing finger to Louis’s chest. “I don’t know how much shit you’re gonna have to go through to get it through your thick head that not everything’s gonna turn out all happy and wonderful, but don’t push your stupidity on the rest of us! I know that I’m gonna die here tonight, and I’m gonna make the best of the rest of my shitty life the only way I know how.” Louis merely glared in silence at his friend as he released him and stomped into the cabin. “I’m gonna fuck up any goddamn son of a bitch that gets in my way.”

Louis turned away, his fists clenched tightly. “Fine. Have it your way, Francis.” He stepped out of the cabin and made his way back to the helm. “You can just have it your own selfish way, ‘cause I am tired of puttin’ up with your shit.”

Francis found his shotgun propped up next to Zoey’s rifle, and then procured several shells from the duffel bag and loaded them into the gun’s chamber. He glanced at the youngest member of their group, who was staring silently at nothing with empty green eyes.

He merely pumped his shotgun and returned to the deck. Louis glared at him from behind the dash, but he continued on back to the bow. The patrol boat was still exactly where it was when he left, and he aimed his shotgun at the head of the one soldier he could see risking a peek over the metal shield.

_BLAM._

The explosive shot rang out, accompanied by the pattering of shell hitting the armor of the patrol boat. From what he could tell, the shot missed its target, but soldiers were no longer visible to aim at. He pumped the shotgun again, and fired another shot at the metal. He didn’t care what he was hitting.

He was shooting something, and it made him feel so much better. Already, he could feel the anger and the frustration beginning to fade away.

Francis continued to shoot at the boat until he had spent six of the eight shells he had put in. As he pumped the gun for the seventh time, he noticed soldiers barely emerging from behind their shield, guns ready to fire.

“About fucking time, ya pussies!” he shouted as he aimed again.

But before he could fire, several shots echoed throughout the night.

After registering that he was still conscious and felt no pain, he looked around and noticed that there was indeed no blood splashed across the cabin wall, no hunks of flesh lying on the deck. Only splinters of wood.

Without warning, another series of shots sounded off, splintering off more wood from the hull and causing the boat to begin to visibly sink into the depths below.

“Goddamn it, Francis! You idiot!” Louis yelled, infuriated and horrified. “I hope you’re happy that you just screwed us over!”

Francis ignored him as he proceeded to empty the final two shots into the armor of the boat. Once those were gone, he threw the shotgun itself at the soldiers, the hunk of black metal making it only halfway across the gap between the two vessels before plunging into the ocean.

He then simply stared at the patrol boat with his arms crossed expectantly and awaited his fate, whether it held taking a bullet through the head or sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

Louis then noted the absence of the third member of their team and limped down into the cabin. The floor was already pooled with water that came up to his ankles.

“Zoey!” he called as he waded over to her seated figure as quickly as he could. “Zoey, come on! You have to get up!”

“No… No…,” she muttered as she shook her head weakly. “I can’t… I won’t…”

He knelt down to her and shook her shoulders forcefully. “Zoey! Don’t be a selfish idiot like Francis! Get up!” When she continued to sit and refuse, he gripped her arms and pulled her to a standing position.

He then pushed her until he got her to the deck, which was already dangerously close to the water by that point. When he let her go, she merely collapsed to her knees, her weak hands still gripping Bill’s beret with what strength remained.

Louis stared incredulously at his friends. “So… this is it, then. You’re both just… Just gonna give up on everything.” He received a reply from neither. “This is what everything boils down to. All our hard work leads to this.” He leaned against the wall of the cabin, exhausted and defeated. “Were we really _this_ dependent on Bill? Without him here to… To tell us what to do next, we’re _really_ this pathetic and hopeless?” He slid to the deck, allowing his stained and ragged clothes to soak up the rising water.

“I’m sorry, Louis.” Zoey finally whimpered, just as tired and despondent as him. “There’s just… There’s no hope… There’s nothing left… Nothing we can do.”

The trio waited as the sailboat was finally swallowed by the water, the red sails the only visible element aside from ruined supplies that managed to escape the cabin and float to the surface. The hull soon settled onto the shallow bottom, leaving them treading water around the tip of the mast.

At that point, the patrol boat finally began to move closer to them, within minutes becoming close enough for the bodysuit-wearing soldiers to begin hauling the survivors out of the waves and onto the boat.

They were each held to the floor of the small vessel, hands restrained behind their backs as soldiers searched them for hidden weapons. Guns were trained on them from all sides, and blank gas masks stared down at them menacingly.

It was a sight that the group wished wasn’t familiar.

“Carriers, you are now under military custody. Do not resist, or we will open fire,” one of them began to inform the new prisoners. “You will do as you are ordered, when we order it, and you are to remain silent unless asked to speak.”

Realizing that they apparently intended to keep the group alive at least for a bit longer, Francis’s mocking attitude quickly flared up. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t understand you under that stupid mask. Why don’t you take it off so I can hear you better?” Francis goaded, only to have his face pressed roughly against the boat’s floor.

“Did someone ask you a question, carrier?” said the soldier pinning him down.

“Bite me,” he growled, earning a swift kick to the head by one of the standing soldiers. His shout of pain and subsequent seething breaths finally pulled Louis and Zoey back to reality. Despite the words previously exchanged on the boat, the trio had been through too much together to simply stand by and let one of their own be harmed, even if he brought it upon himself.

“Listen. I’m not gonna tolerate your shit for very long, carrier. You’re gonna shape up or face the consequences, which I can promise won’t be pretty.”

“Fuck y-“

“Francis, stop!” Zoey interrupted the biker before he could dig himself into an even deeper hole. He managed to twist his head enough to look her in the eye, her concern successfully registering with him. “Just… Just do as they say.”

The soldier atop her tugged her face upwards by her ponytail, pulling her scalp painfully. “You know that no-talking rule applies to you too, right sweetcheeks?” She fell silent, and the soldier pulled even harder. “I just asked you a question.”

“Yes,” she replied quickly. He jerked on her hair again, prompting a pained yelp from her.

“Yes, what?”

She groaned as her scalp screamed for relief. “Yes, sir…!”

“Good,” he returned with a chuckle before releasing his grip on her hair.

During the commotion, the soldier that debriefed them began radioing for instructions on what to do with the newest batch of carriers.

“Command, this is Patrol 2, over.” He waited for a moment.

“Patrol 2, this is Command, reading you five, over,” came the reply from Command, which the group could only assume was the ship.

“This is Patrol 2, we’ve acquired three tango mikes aboard the vessel, two males and one female. One male is confirmed hostile.” Louis shot an icy look at Francis, which he missed. “The vessel has been sunk and all weapons have been disposed. Requesting permission to return with tango mikes, over.”

“This is Command, permission granted. Transportation to Gettysburg is already in preparation, over.”

“This is Patrol 2, roger, out.”

Upon hearing of transportation to Gettysburg, Louis’s heart jumped and his cold glare melted. They were being taken to the mainland! His mind ran wild with ideas of how to escape the military again, most of them being something taken straight out of a movie or video game.

He abruptly stopped himself when he looked at his friends. Would they even want to try again? He had his doubts that they would, considering how quickly they had given up no more than ten minutes before. He was deeply disappointed that his teammates were so quick to resign themselves, but at the same time he supposed that he did understand why they did so.

If the time came to fight back and they chose to surrender… Well, he couldn’t make them do something they saw no point in.

“Alright, carriers,” said the soldier at the radio as he stood. “Looks like you’re gonna get to live a little bit longer, at the very least.” He signaled to the soldier at the helm of the boat to take them back to the ship, and the boat lurched forward in compliance. “Unless you continue to break the rules, that is.”

Francis scoffed, but the soldiers ignored him. He knew that whatever awaited them in Gettysburg was not going to be pleasant.

Death would probably end up being the more pleasant alternative by far.

* * *

Within minutes of boarding the ship, the group was unceremoniously shoved into the cargo hold of a waiting helicopter and sealed off from the outside world.

Zoey and Louis sat on one side of the small space while Francis leaned against the wall of the opposite. They sat quietly, listening to the muffled roar of the helicopter blades above them and their own light shivers as they remained in their soaked clothes.

“So. You still think everything’s gonna turn out all peachy-keen, Louis?” Francis said after several minutes had passed. The darkness largely concealed his features, but the bitterness in his voice was clear.

“To be perfectly honest with you Francis...” Louis clasped his hands together in his lap and steeled himself for a heated argument. “I do still think that we have a chance.”

Unsurprisingly, Francis threw his hands in the air with an incredulous chuckle. “Of course you do. Of _fucking_ course you do.” He paced up and down his side of the hold for a moment. “How… How do you do it?”

“Do what?” Louis tiredly watched his friend, wishing that the biker could somehow let go of his incessant negativity. Why was it so hard for him to accept that sometimes things _do_ turn out all right?

“How in the hell do you… Do you just… Keep on ignoring reality like that?”

The conversation was rather similar to the one they had one the way to Millhaven. “I’m not ignoring reality, Francis.”

Francis chuckled again. “Oh, I’m sorry Louis… But I thought that’s what it meant to be _completely fucking insane_!” His shout shook Zoey from her silent trance, but Louis sat resolute. “How?! How could you possibly think that _anything_ good could come from this?!” He slammed the wall with his hand, but the analyst gave no answer. “Tell me! If you want me to change my mind and start thinkin’ positive, then give me a goddamn reason to!”

Louis allowed the space to fall silent again before replying. “Have you ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy, Francis?” No answer. “That’s when you predict something, whether it’s good or bad… And it happens because you work to _make_ it happen.” Francis turned away with a growl, but Zoey listened to him as he continued.

“This whole time I’ve been, well, predicting that everything would work out. And I’ve been trying my hardest to _make_ it work out. And thinking positive? Seeing the bright side? That’s the first step towards realizing my prophecies. Believing you can do something others might call impossible… Believing that a bad situation will turn out okay despite how much the odds seem stacked against you...” He chuckled quietly. “Believing that you can convince a pessimistic friend to accept that the world isn’t always out to get him…” Francis scoffed.

“So far, everything’s turned out okay for the most part. We just have to pull ourselves together and keep rolling with the punches. If we can do that, and I _know_ we can, then I know we’ll be alright.”

He turned to Zoey, giving her the warmest smile he possibly could. She didn’t return it, instead closing her eyes as she propped her head on her knees. “I really wish I could be more like you, Louis.”

She was tired and upset. They all were. Knowing that conversation was too much to ask for, he simply wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “I promise we’ll be okay.”

* * *

The ragged trio was jolted from their sleep as the floor beneath them shook and the door to the helicopter began to open with a foreboding whir. The light that flooded into the space was dim, the sun not even having risen above the horizon.

Soldiers stood outside, all wearing the same standard issue bodysuits and with their guns trained upon the new arrivals. “Carriers, you are now on board the USS Gettysburg and are under military custody.”

Learning that they were on a ship named after Gettysburg as opposed to the town itself felt like a slap across Louis’s face. It took all of his self-control not to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. Escaping a prison in the middle of the ocean was certainly not going to be as easy as escaping one on land.

“Immediately place all of your belongings on the floor of the helicopter and slowly stand with your hands above your head. Do not make any sudden or violent movements, or we will not hesitate to open fire.” The analyst couldn’t help but notice how practiced the command sounded. How many other carriers were on the ship?

Having no possessions left other than the dirt and blood-encrusted clothes on their backs, the group stood cautiously as the soldiers’ guns followed their every move. A quiet growl sounded from Francis, but nothing more came of it.

One of the soldiers backed away and motioned for them to follow him. “This way.” They stepped out of the helicopter and filed after him, taking in the huge structures before them while the remaining soldiers continued to follow them with their firearms.

Pipes and wires and antennas rose from the ship’s deck, reaching up towards the still dark sky like tall and thin monsters attempting to pierce through the few clouds that could be seen. Huge mounted guns were on either side of the bridge, and its dark windows seemed to glare at all that was beneath them.

The soldier led them down below deck, coming to a stop at a double-sealed passageway. It was clear that it hadn’t been constructed as part of the ship, instead being a recent and spur-of-the-moment installation. Another soldier stood waiting at the entrance, nodding stiffly at their guide before turning and punching a code into a keypad beside him.

A hiss sounded as the nearest door opened, and the first soldier stepped back. “Get in.”

The trio obediently entered, Francis glaring at both soldiers in turn as he passed. As soon as they cleared the doorway, it was sealed once again. Within moments the far door began to open with another hiss. Only after it was sufficiently open did they notice the man standing behind it.

He was dressed in faded blue scrubs and held a clipboard to his chest, his wide face bearing a smile that was dampened by some form of unease. “Welcome aboard.” He let loose a small chuckle. “I bet you three are glad to be back in civilized company, yeah?” His attempt at brightening the mood fell flat on them, something that seemed to happen often judging by how quickly he sighed and looked them over empathetically. “Well, I know you’re exhausted, so let’s get you all cleaned up and put some food in you.”

Louis perked up considerably at the suggestion of a bath and food. Forceful gun-toting escorts aside, this was already a much warmer reception then they had received at Millhaven, and that piqued his curiosity.

“Follow me.” The man led them down a short corridor to the right, taking them into a small and hastily put together examination room guarded by two more soldiers. The masked guards watched intently as the group passed, adjusting their guns menacingly.

Inside the room was a young blonde woman holding several bundles of pale clothes. She attempted a cheerful smile at the newcomers, but their failure to return it earned the same tired and sympathetic look that the man had given.

A soldier closed the door behind them as the man procured a pen from a nearby desk and began to write something on his clipboard. “I’m Dr. Oswald Parson, and this is Ms. Lily Peacher. We are part of this ship’s medical staff, dedicated to ensuring the wellbeing of all carriers onboard. If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to come to any of us.” He finished his introduction with a warm, but still sympathetic smile. Both he and the nurse radiated an air of resignation.

“I’m afraid we only have room for one shower in this registration room, so you’ll have to decide amongst yourselves who gets to go first,” he said with a quick gesture to a door in the back of the room before returning to his clipboard.

Louis and Francis glanced at each other, and then glanced at Zoey. She was distant, staring down her reflection in the floor. It saddened them both to see her like this. She had finally started to open back up to them after coming to the island, and now she had retreated back inside of herself. Louis nudged her gently. “You go first.”

That seemed to startle her, and she forcefully blinked several times before turning to look at her companions. “You sure?”

He smiled, trying anything he could to ease her worries. “Yeah.”

She forced herself up and trudged through the door, Ms. Peacher following her.

Dr. Parson looked up from his writing. “Who feels like answering some questions first?”

* * *

The nurse pulled the door closed quietly before laying the folded garments down on a rickety table. “So. What size clothes do you wear?”

Zoey stared at her blankly, trying to force her muddled thoughts to collect and recall the desired information. Ms. Peacher waited patiently, but Zoey’s mind failed to respond to her commands and she rubbed her temple in defeat. The night had certainly taken its toll on her. “I’m sorry, I… um… I don’t… don’t remember.”

The older woman gave her a small smile. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just look at your tags.” She stepped around Zoey and pulled open the curtains to a portable shower. “There’s plenty of shampoo and soap, and you don’t need to worry about running out of water.” She then reached behind the far side of the shower, standing back up with a towel in hand and placing it next to the stack of clothes.

Zoey stood gazing silently into the shower, her mind slowly beginning to clear as she managed to begin undressing, first pulling off her muddy and torn shoes. Once her mind had cleared sufficiently, it finally registered that Ms. Peacher was still in the room with her. She paused in the middle of unzipping her jacket. “Are you staying in here?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. It’s standard protocol.” She took a seat on a plastic chair beside the shower, the sides of which Zoey was thankful were opaque.

She examined the interior, finding that she had gone so long without a proper shower that the device seemed confusing and foreign with her shock-induced stupor only adding to her struggle. She played with the knobs until precious warm water sprayed from the showerhead and into her waiting hand. “Gotta make sure I don’t try to sneak out naked, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

Zoey finished removing her jacket, stopping herself from tossing it onto the floor when she felt the lump in its pocket. “Are you washing these or getting rid of them?”

Ms. Peacher was placing her shoes and socks into a plastic bin with a biohazard symbol hastily drawn onto it. “We have to burn them. But I promise we’re providing good clothes in return.”

Zoey pulled Bill’s beret from her jacket before handing the pink bundle to her. She couldn’t let them burn such a precious item. “Please just let me keep this.” She ran her fingers over the silver pin lovingly. “It’s… It’s really important to me.”

“I can’t, I’m sorry.” She reached for the hat only for Zoey to pull away. The nurse’s look of sympathy was sincere, but Zoey was not about to simply give up something so important.

She just couldn’t.

“ _Please_. I’m begging you, I’ll do anything.” She clutched the hat to her chest, trying to show just how much personal meaning the innocuous hat truly held. “This belonged to someone I lost. Please let me keep it.”

Ms. Peacher sighed as she glanced towards the closed door. She thought for a moment before turning back to Zoey. “Okay.” She scooted to the edge of her seat and leaned forward, her face taking on a dark air. “But you have to make sure that _no one_ knows about this. You’ll get us both in _serious_ trouble if the soldiers find out. Do you understand?”

Zoey nodded, feeling herself relax. “Perfectly.” She placed Bill’s hat underneath the towel on the table. “Thank you. Really.”

“Don’t mention it.” She settled back into her chair and tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “I guess we’ve all got our ways of coping.”

* * *

“First and last name?”

“Louis Morrows.”

Dr. Parson quickly scribbled onto the paper in front of him. “Date of birth?”

“August fifteenth, 1980.”

He continued to write and check off boxes, muttering quietly to himself. “Male… African-American…”

Francis shifted impatiently while the man worked. “You’re really just gonna answer all this shit?”

“Yes. I am,” Louis responded matter-of-factly, glad that Francis was no longer yelling at him.

“You have no clue what they’re even gonna do with us, and you’re just gonna tell ‘em your life story.”

The doctor looked up from his writing. “I understand your concerns, but I can assure you that we have no ill intentions. Our goal is to…” He twiddled with his pen as he chose his words. “… To provide a place of safety for carriers until we can be reintegrated with the rest of society.”

Francis began to pick at a scab on the side of his nose. “Yeah, I call bullshit.”

“On what grounds?” Dr. Parson inquired, clasping his hands together curiously.

“We’ve been in a place like this before, and the doctor there said a cure was impossible.” The biker leaned back and folded his arms, expecting for the doctor to begin fumbling with lies and cover-ups.

He returned to twiddling his pen instead. “Sadly, a cure does seem to be unfeasible at the moment.” He then looked up at his patients, his jaw set with a new determination. “But a cure is not the only way to fight a disease. Preventative medicine for the unexposed non-immunes is the focus of our research here.”

Louis leaned forward, eager to learn more. “Have you made any progress with that?”

“We are slowly but surely moving forward. It’s a difficult task, but I feel that a breakthrough could be just around the corner.” He returned to his previous tired smile and straightened his papers. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The sooner we finish these forms, the sooner we can all go down for breakfast.”

* * *

“Wake up!” commanded a muffled voice from the opposite side of the door, a malicious banging accompanying the command. “Breakfast in five!”

Rochelle turned over with a groan, her drooping bed squeaking loudly. She lay motionless as her two roommates stood and stretched before turning on the light, desperately trying to get any extra bit of sleep she could.

“Come on, Ro,” sighed a female voice as someone gently shook her arm. “You’ve had your two minutes of beauty sleep.”

Forcing her eyelids open revealed her rouser to be the woman who slept on the bunk below her. “Alright Valerie, I’m up.”

Valerie grinned warmly before turning to acknowledge the room’s third occupant. “So what do you think breakfast is gonna be today, Peggy?”

Peggy grunted in response. “Slop. When is it ever anything else?”

Rochelle hesitantly slid off of her bunk, flinching when her feet made contact with the cold laminate floor. She did her best to stretch, mostly managing to do little more than irritate her sore muscles and joints.

“What flavor of slop?” Valerie prodded absentmindedly as she cautiously pushed the door open and scanned up and down the hallway.

“Soggy bread if we’re lucky.” The taller woman ran a tired hand through her unruly curls. “But we’re never that lucky, are we?” She gently pushed Valerie through the door and steered her towards the canteen. “Let’s go, ladies.”

Rochelle sighed and followed her roommates down the cramped hallway of the carriers’ quarters, squeezing past any of the other drowsy people that paused long enough for her to overtake them. She glanced back and caught sight of Nick and Coach emerging from their room at the back of the hallway, but they were quickly obscured by the somber crowd trudging onwards to the canteen.

They passed through the living area, a relatively large space containing little more than a handful of chairs and tables with a couple of decks of playing cards, and soon came to an abrupt stop at the entrance to the canteen.

“Okay, why are we stopped?” asked Peggy to no one in particular as she raised herself onto her toes and attempted to see over the throng of hungry carriers.

“Don’t tell me there’s been another accident,” came a terrified voice from the back.

“Of course not. Don’t be an idiot,” a second voice replied irritably.

Peggy lowered herself back down and placed a hand on her hip. “Looks like the soldiers are tightening up security.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.” Rochelle began to bite her nails absentmindedly, flecks of red polish still stubbornly clinging to them.

"Why, though? Do you think it has anything to do with yesterday?" Valerie glanced back and forth between her roommates, who both shrugged in response.

Slowly, the line began to shuffle forward one person at a time. A soldier stood on each side of the double doors, their guns ready to fire in an instant. They did little more than stare each carrier down as they passed, but a shiver still ran down Rochelle’s spine when the emotionless black masks settled on her for the tense few seconds she was passing between them.

Inside, the canteen seemed normal. The tables where the incident had occurred were still slightly out of place, but everything else was untouched. Soldiers lined the walls in their usual positions, standing vigil as carriers received their plates of brown mush and took their seats. The most private spots were taken first, as always, but it took noticeably longer for the out-of-place tables to receive their first occupants.

Rochelle split away from Peggy and Valerie to find a place she could hold for Nick and Coach, and both women joined their own groups of companions. She lifted tiny spoonfuls into her mouth, finding that the canteen “food” somehow managed to go down easier each day. Soon enough, the two men found their way to her table.

“Mornin’ Ro.” Coach sat across from her, a heavy sigh escaping him as he sat.

She gave her best greeting smile. “Good morning, Coach. You sleep well?”

“As well as you _can_ sleep here, I suppose.” He fiddled with his plastic spoon and eyed the plate in front of him with distrust. “What about you?”

“Same.” A plate slide up beside her, and she watched as Nick took his own seat. Part of her wanted to chuckle at how messy his hair was, several wild strands hanging in front of his eyes until he ran a hand over them.

“It’s too early for this shit.”

“Amen to that,” seconded Coach, shaking his head and scratching his neck.

“Y’know, I used to be a morning person.” Rochelle laid her chin on her palm. “But I guess I was only able to be one because of coffee.” She dropped her spoon into her half-eaten mush. “God, I miss coffee.”

“Girl, don’t even _mention_ coffee.” Coach finally forced himself to swallow down a spoonful of his breakfast. “Thinkin’ about it just makes me miss it more.”

By that point, most all of the carriers had shuffled into the canteen and procured their meal. The doors had been long closed, the low murmur of cautious conversation being the only noise to register in anyone’s ears.

And then suddenly, the doors swung open once more.

Three individuals stepped inside, and Rochelle studied them as they slowly made their way to pick up their plates. The way they moved and looked around suggested that they were new arrivals, and she knew that the backs of their heads certainly didn’t seem immediately familiar to her.

There was a girl, fairly small and with her hair done up in a ponytail. Then there were two men, one rather thin and suffering a limp while the other was tall and brawny. All three were dressed in the designated carrier uniform of a white t-shirt and khakis. She found herself drawn to the intricate tattoos on the larger man’s arms, the details becoming clearer the closer he drew, and suddenly she felt something click.

She had seen those tattoos before.

The trio continued to move closer, and pieces began to fall into place. She mentally fought with herself over whether or not it could’ve been the people she was thinking of. The chances were just far too small, she tried to convince herself.

And then they turned around and her doubts were torn to shreds.

“Francis! Louis! Zoey!”


	4. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ship carries good. The ship carries bad. The ship carries everything in between.
> 
> The survivors have been brought together once more. Some of them are happy with the new arrangement, others not so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes, it's been awhile since the last update. Well, hopefully there's still somebody left keeping an eye on this story. :')
> 
> You may notice that I actually changed the story title, which was something I've been meaning to do for a bit now. The old one was based off of a planned title drop way late in the story centering on a plot point that I've pretty much scrapped at this point, so yeah... (Not to mention it just kinda outright sucked. :P)
> 
> Moving on, the survivors finally get their first full chapter together! Yay!
> 
> As always, reviews are immensely appreciated! I promise that they really do help me keep coming back to this story, even if updates take a lot longer than they should. c':

Rochelle stood and excitedly made her way towards the newcomers, ignoring the sudden silence and preparatory firearm adjustments at her outburst. The trio seemed just as shocked to be recognized, watching her closely until she drew near enough that they could clearly make out her face.

Francis was the first to return her acknowledgement. “Holy shit… Rochelle?”

She beamed back in response, finding it surprisingly difficult to resist throwing her arms out for a hug that was passively accepted by the biker. With his muscular arms held limply against his barrel of a torso, her hands barely came close enough for her fingers to brush together at his back. “I don’t believe it,” she breathed incredulously after releasing him, turning to place her hands on Louis and Zoey’s wrists in turn. “We never thought we’d see you guys again!”

“We didn’t either,” replied Louis, mirroring her ecstatic grin. “Glad we were wrong, though. Good company’s hard to come by these days.”

“You’re not wrong the-“

A pair of soldiers stepped up to the group, their figures as imposing as ever in their bulky black suits. “Alright, what’s all the commotion?”

Rochelle’s heart skipped a beat and she mentally kicked herself.

She found her head involuntarily sinking between her shoulders as she held her hands up in surrender. “I-I’m _so_ sorry sir. I, uh… I was just… really excited to see some old friends.” She suddenly felt the many pairs of eyes boring relentlessly into her back, and the sensation of being terrifyingly exposed and vulnerable made itself known. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

The soldiers remained silent for a moment, seemingly pondering whether or not she was worthy of punishing. Eventually, they decided that she apparently was not. “Get back to your table, carrier.” The pair backed away, though they continued to watch intently as Rochelle retreated back to Coach and Nick, quickly followed by the newcomer trio looking to each other in worry. As they sat, the hum of cautious conversation slowly began to return.

Nick studied the soldiers as they returned to their posts before turning back to his companions. “Jesus Rochelle, that couldn’t have waited until after breakfast?”

“I know, I’m sorry.” She rubbed her temples tiredly, her pulse slowly beginning to return to normal. “I just… I don’t know what came over me.” She pointedly avoided making eye contact with him, well aware of how stupid she seemed to him at that moment.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Coach commented to no one in particular, changing the subject away from Rochelle’s overexcitement. He leaned his face on the knuckles of one hand. “Now, I thought y’all were _avoiding_ the military.”

Francis’s face, not generally incredibly cheerful to begin with, instantly soured. “We _were_. Then the military copied our island plan,” he grumbled, swirling a cup of water that looked miniscule in his powerful hands.

“Figures.” Nick spooned a glob of mush into his reluctant mouth.

Louis unpacked his utensils and poked into his own unappetizing meal. “Something’s telling me this isn’t exactly a pleasure cruise.”

Coach glanced around before answering. “It ain’t quite what any of us expected, no.”

“Well, what _were_ you expecting?” Zoey didn’t look to them as she spoke, instead focused on a group of three soldiers standing together. They seemed to be conversing with each other about the newcomers, occasionally glancing in their direction. One of them caught her watching them and stared back, straightening his stance and lifting his gun ever-so-slightly.

She obediently turned her gaze back to her tray.

“Not being the subject of a dictatorship, for one thing,” Rochelle replied under her breath, stirring her food slowly. She glanced up quickly enough to catch Zoey’s eye, but the younger woman simply looked away.

Nick forced down his food with a grimace. “Speak for yourself.” He prepared for another small mouthful.

Coach ignored Nick’s comment reminding them of his distrust of CEDA and the military from day one. “Not being cooped up on this damn ship, for another,” he added with a roll of his shoulders to emphasize the omnipresent feeling of claustrophobia.

“Hey, we told you that the military wasn’t gonna help.” Francis huffed and crossed his arms. “You should’ve listened to us when you had the chance.” Coach wasn’t very pleased at being the receiver of second “I told you so”, but held his tongue.

Louis elbowed Francis sharply in the arm, meeting his glower with a stern look of his own. “Because it’s not like our plan didn’t get us into the _exact_ same situation.”

“So? We still-”

“Hey.” Nick leaned across the table and abruptly cut Francis’s rising voice off with a curt wave in front of his face. “Both of you shut up.” He settled back into his seat with a barely-audible grunt and briefly placed a hand to his side. “Rochelle’s already got them watching us, the last thing we need is more attention.”

Rochelle looked down in shame while Francis flared up even more. Fortunately, Louis was able to place a calming hand on the biker’s shoulder before he could say something they would all regret. “He’s right.”

Francis, his face beginning to turn slightly red with anger at being ordered around by the insufferable _conman_ of all people, turned his attention to his plate with a growl.

The group fell into a tense silence as they ate their breakfast.

* * *

After quickly downing what they could of the questionably-nutritious mush, the group returned their trays to the kitchen and backtracked through the double doors into the common room. They were only the second group to arrive, and managed to procure a table for themselves as a result.

Most of them pulled their chairs up quietly, though Francis scooted his far-too-small metal chair forward with a grating screech that earned him further scornful looks from Nick. The biker rolled his eyes in return.

“So, how long have you guys been on the ship?” Louis inquired now that they seemed to no longer be under such tight scrutiny, with only two soldiers standing guard over each exit and both of them looking rather bored with their post. He still spoke quietly, however, wary from how cautious of the soldiers the others seemed.

The fearful submission was highly concerning when it came from a group that, as far as Louis was concerned, had proven themselves to be quite the opposite of cowardly. A little hardheaded and rash maybe, but not cowardly.

It certainly wasn’t a good sign for their escape prospects.

Rochelle drummed her fingers on the table. “… A week, I guess?” she ventured after a moment of thought, looking to her friends for reassurance but earning only a shrug from Coach.

Nick had procured a deck of playing cards from another table on his way to their seats and was presently shuffling it absentmindedly, balancing his chair on its back legs. “Five days.”

The analyst pointedly ignored Francis as he made a show of playing with laminate that was peeling from the table’s surface. “How’d you end up here? Last I remember, you guys said you were heading to New Orleans.”

Coach nodded. “Yeah. It was a hell of a trip, but somehow we actually _did_ make it all the way there.” He scratched his growing beard as he remembered that last grueling day. “Turned out the city had been overrun by the time we got there, but the military was still hangin’ around the area.” He decided not to mention the gruesome red flags they had passed along their way and had ignored in their blind desperation to be saved. “We were just in time to catch the last chopper headin’ out, and that brought us straight here.”

Louis hummed and returned a nod of his own. He glanced in Zoey’s direction, but her mood seemed to have improved little since they had arrived. She was currently resting her head on her folded arms, eyes nearly closed and staring blankly into the crook of her arm. He didn’t blame her, given the devastating and mostly sleepless night they had.

Turning to Francis revealed that he had managed to free a rather large strip of laminate and was now focusing his energy into tearing it into smaller shreds. In a way, he resembled a brutish and very bored child picking the wings off of a poor, unsuspecting insect.

Looking across the table, Coach and Rochelle were both silently watching Nick continue to shuffle the cards, he assumed in anticipation of dealing them out for a game. Something was off about them, aside from the newfound meekness of course, but what was it?

It didn’t take long for him to remember their fourth teammate, who was nowhere to be seen nor heard.

 _“So Ellis didn’t make it.”_ His heart panged and, pointless and slightly illogical as it was given that he had no idea how Ellis had been lost, his train of thought nonetheless steered itself to wondering if perhaps the boy could’ve been saved if they had done more to help during the brief time they were together.

Louis was unsure of how best to pursue the subject, but knew that not to make any effort to offer his condolences would’ve been disrespectful to Ellis’s memory. After a minute of silence, he cleared his throat. “I… I have to say that I’m really sad to see that Ellis didn’t make it here with you.” He caught movement from Zoey in the corner of his vision. “He was a great kid, and I know you all must miss him. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

There was a confused pause on the other side of the table, the trio seemingly caught off-guard, and Rochelle was the first to react as she registered what Louis had assumed. “Oh! Oh no, he’s alive. He’s alive and he’s on the ship, I can assure you.” She gave him a reassuring chuckle.

“Damn right, he’s alive. You gotta give him credit, that boy’s tough.” Coach ran a hand over his head to scratch the back of his neck, holding his other hand out in front of him with his fingers pinched together. “He did cut it close, though.”

Louis sighed in relief, slumping back in his chair. “Whew, okay. I’m glad I was wrong.” He could see that Zoey had shifted slightly, her head now upright to watch the rest of the group though her eyes were blank and unreadable. “I hope you all can forgive me for assuming something like that.”

Rochelle was quick to wave his apology away. “Don’t worry about it, I can see why you had that thought.” She studied her folded hands for a moment before snapping back to attention as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t have. “We do appreciate the sentiment, though. Don’t we, boys?”

Coach agreed with a warm smile and an amiable “mm-hmm” while Nick simply shrugged, still continuing to shuffle the cards.

The older man leaned onto the table to better see his companions. “Speakin’ of Ellis, almost forgot. Who’s takin’ first shift?”

Rochelle and Nick passed a quick look between them. “I will,” she said as she stood and pushed her chair up to the table neatly, pausing in the middle of striding towards the door to look back to the group. “Would any of you guys like to come see him? I know he’d _love_ the extra company.”

It was difficult for anyone to miss the pointed glance she sent in Zoey’s direction, but the younger woman made no move to stand. Louis was disappointed, remembering how the boy had actually managed to lighten her mood a little that night in Rayford despite what they had just been through, but not surprised.

Determined to do his best to foster good relations between the groups despite how much his friends seemed to be set on sabotaging his efforts with their indifference, Louis rose and joined Rochelle. “Francis, you play nice while I’m gone, alright?”

Francis never took his attention off his steadily-diminishing toy. “Fuck you.”

“Thanks, Francis,” the analyst countered without missing a beat, complete with a thumbs-up that the intended target ignored.

The pair left the room, and Nick finally began to deal out the cards.

* * *

 

“Honestly, he might not even be awake yet. But we always try to send someone in early just in case he is,” Rochelle explained as they rounded the latest of many corners and finally found themselves in the infirmary. “Don’t want to just leave him alone, y’know?”

“No, I get it. Just being stuck in bed’s gotta be bad enough for the poor guy.” Louis had spent the walk only half-listening to Rochelle’s small talk, instead focusing on learning the ship’s layout. There were thankfully plenty of signs directing them to their desired location, but he was quick to note that many of the signs presumably leading to other locations had been unceremoniously censored with black paint.

Someone clearly did _not_ want carriers snooping around the ship.

The duo came to stop at the third door in, and Rochelle knocked hard enough to make a sound on the heavy metal door. After a moment, the door was opened by a nurse that Rochelle had seen a few times before.

She nodded first at Rochelle and then Louis, though she stalled briefly as she gave the newest carrier a once-over. After she approved them both, she returned to her patient to finish administering fresh medications to him.

Contrary to Rochelle’s expectations, Ellis was actually awake and instantly affixed the new arrivals with the strongest smile she had seen from him since they had arrived. When he noticed the second newcomer, however, the smile morphed into a jaw drop of surprise. “Louis?”

The lanky man smiled, further relieved to have physical proof that his earlier assumption had been wrong. “Glad to see you still remember me.”

“Hell yeah, I-“ Ellis’s attempt at raising his voice triggered a bout of coughs, and the nurse look up from the clipboard she was writing on.

“Please don’t shout. Your ribs are still healing.”

He cleared his throat and adjusted his position slightly, brows furrowed as the pain subsided. “Yeah, sorry.” His voice rasped in the aftermath of the cough.

She returned her attention to the clipboard as she made her way out the door, seemingly through with her work and ready to allow her patient’s visitors into the cramped space.

Louis couldn’t help but notice a clear box hanging from her arm that carried several vials of blood, and a patch of gauze on the crook of Ellis’s elbow confirmed that the contents were his. Louis certainly wasn’t a doctor, but it seemed like quite a lot to be taken from someone who was already bedridden.

Ellis regained his smile, watching the lanky man intently as he limped inside with Rochelle behind him. “I sure wasn’t expectin’ to see you any time soon. How the hell’d ya get here?” Though his current condition was holding his body down, his eyes were practically alight with excitement.

Rochelle gestured towards a chair by the head of the bed, and Louis took it gratefully. “It turns out that we weren’t the only people looking for islands. The military found us after a few days and, well, here we are,” he recounted briefly.

The boy didn’t miss a beat on the “we” and “us”.

“So Zo-“ He paused with his eyes closed and his unbound hand curled into a fist in front of his mouth, stopping himself just in time to halt the rising cough. “So Zoey and Francis are here too?”

Louis nodded. “Yep. I’ll make sure they both stop by to see you soon.” The smile on Ellis’s face finally started to fade, his initial bout of energy apparently running low. He knew he wasn’t completely informed on the extent of Ellis’s injuries, but that didn’t stop Louis from pinning blame on the blood loss anyway.

“Yes, please.” Ellis relaxed into the pillows supporting him with a sigh and started to boredly pick at some loose fuzz on the bandage of his left arm. “… I can’t wait ‘till I’m outta this stupid bed...”

Rochelle took a seat on the bed next to his feet. “Trust me, Ellis, we can’t wait for you to be out either.”

“Not Nick,” Ellis said with a chuckle.

She gave him a grin of pretend admonishment, well aware that he was simply poking fun at their less agreeable friend but still feeling the need to defend the conman. Louis wondered if it was because of his own presence.

“Oh, you hush. He wants you back on your feet too, he just won’t admit it.” She gave him a reassuring pat on the leg. “I can tell you’re getting better. This is the most you’ve talked yet. At this rate, I don’t think you’ll be stuck in here for too much longer.”

Ellis shrugged. “I really hope you’re right, ‘cause I’m pretty sure I ain’t gonna be able to even _look_ at another bed after this.”

* * *

Nick tossed his final card onto the pile, a six of clubs. “That’s game.”

Coach dropped his hand with a sigh and a shake of his head. “Is it even physically possible for you to lose a game of cards, Nick?”

“Huh. Not to you chumps.” He began to gather up the cards in preparation for a fourth game of Crazy Eights. “Just imagine if we _actually_ had something we could bet with. Screw being king of the riverboats, I could be king of the goddamn _Navy_.” A smug chuckle escaped his chest.

Francis scowled at his hand of fifteen cards before shoving them over to their dealer. “I hate card games,” he grumbled.

A third hand of cards came from Zoey, who had only agreed to play to distract herself from her negative thoughts. “So this is it? You guys just sit around playing cards all day long?”

The oldest of the group buzzed his lips as he exhaled heavily. “Sad, ain’t it?”

She propped her chin on her upturned palms. “Y’know, this place might actually be worse than Millhaven.” Francis hummed to the affirmative and nodded, the movement catching in the corner of her vision.

“What’s Millhaven?” Coach leaned onto one arm and looked at her curiously. He seemed to be eager for anything to fill the void of boredom, a task that playing cards failed spectacularly at.

“Military base,” she answered bluntly, hoping to not explore the subject further and regretting that she had even mentioned it in the first place. It brought a few too many unpleasant memories for her liking.

Francis crossed his arms with a huff, his chest puffed out slightly. “More like a _zombie_ base now.” He seemed to be remembering it somewhat more fondly than Zoey, which she supposed made sense.

The news of them being carriers didn’t have quite the same ramifications for him as it did for her.

Coach simply nodded as he picked up the first card Nick placed in front of him. “I see.” Zoey was immensely relieved he didn’t pursue the subject and picked up her own card, a seven of hearts.

Nick continued to deal out cards until each of them had a hand of eight. Just as they were about to begin play, however, a soldier made his way to the center of the now-crowded room.

“Attention, carriers!” The room that had been buzzing with conversation instantly fell dead silent. “I need all of you to line up in an orderly fashion and follow us. No questions, let’s go.” He accentuated his desire for quick compliance with several claps of his gloved hands.

Some of the carriers snapped to attention and practically ran to the wall where the line was forming, while others rose more cautiously. The soldier strode up to one such cautious individual and lifted the bony man onto his feet by the back of his shirt. “Move it, String Bean.” The man scampered to the back of the queue with a whimper.

Nick was the first of their group to rise, quickly followed by Coach who motioned for the others to hurry when they lagged slightly behind. “Come on, y’all,” he urged just barely above a whisper. Francis and Zoey began to move for the line, but not quite fast enough to avoid being called out.

“Hey, Cupcake, Meathead. I said let’s move.” He drew up behind them close enough to prod Zoey with the butt of his gun, and she failed to stop the glare and raised fist that arose out of pure habit after two weeks of having more than a few zombies punching and clawing at her back. She found herself with the other end of the gun now pointing in her direction.

“Oh-ho, you wanna try me Cupcake? Even after what happened yesterday?” She backed away as he stepped forward, but it wasn’t long before her back met a cold metal wall. “Must not be a lotta brains behind that pretty face.”

There was a sudden commotion behind the soldier as Francis separated from the crowd of more obedient carriers.

“Hey, you get the _hell_ away from her!” His own fist was raised as he ran forward, ready to unleash his pent-up rage upon the man who threatened to harm his friend.

He never got the chance, however, as a pair of thick arms wrapped around him from behind.

“Francis, don’t!” Coach called out, doing his best to hold the biker back despite the latter’s struggling. His arms flexed with a power Zoey didn’t know he had, and she couldn’t deny being impressed that anyone could physically hold down Francis when he was so thoroughly worked up.

She also couldn’t deny feeling betrayed, even if deep down she knew that they had to have a reason to be so compliant with their captors.

“What the fuck are you protecting _them_ for?” Francis growled, voicing the thoughts that Zoey shared on her behalf. “Get off me!”

Coach’s grip was starting to slip, but he refused to let go. “Listen to me! They will _kill_ both of you! It ain’t worth it!”

Three more soldiers descended upon Francis while a fourth pulled Coach away, but Zoey could tell that they weren’t necessary at this point. Coach had gotten through to him, though she didn’t know if it was for better or for worse.

The first soldier strolled over to Francis and Coach, but not before he motioned for another soldier to restrain her as well. “Oh, okay, I get it now. You two are part of the new group… But there’s supposed to be three of you.” He turned back to her, his body language plainly showing how highly he thought of himself, at least compared to them. “Where’s number three?”

“He’s visitin’ someone in the infirmary, sir,” Coach answered for her, and the soldier whirled around like someone had thrown something at his back.

He bent down to look Coach in the face, but he averted his gaze to the floor. “I didn’t ask you, old man.” He spun back to Zoey, staring her down through the empty black eyes of his mask. “Is he lyin’ to me, Cupcake? Is your friend in the infirmary?”

“Yes, he’s in the infirmary… Sir.” Adding the “proper” address left a sour taste on her tongue.

The soldier hummed. “Well, as it turns out, that’s where all of you are going. We’ll find out in a few minutes if you two are telling the truth.” He drew slightly closer, adjusting his grip on his gun. “But first, I gotta make sure both of you know your place. Y’know, since you missed the last demonstration.”

Without warning, he swung the butt of his gun across Zoey’s face. If there hadn’t been a soldier holding her in place, she likely would’ve been sent sprawling to the floor by the force.

She couldn’t help the groan that escaped her as she recovered from the shock of the blow, pain now spreading across the left side of her face like a burning flower unfurling over her skin.

“You mother fucker!” Francis roared, unable to free himself from the three sets of arms holding him. The soldier wasted no time in giving him a hit of his own, knocking his head aside with a crack to the forehead.

“That’s just a taste of what’ll happen if your friend ain’t in the infirmary when we get there. You got that?” He kneeled in front of Coach, using the butt of his gun to force his gaze up. “Look, we appreciate the assistance, old man. Really, we do.” His cold voice was dripping with venom. “But if you lied to us, your head’s rollin’ too.”

He stood with a lively snap, as if hadn’t just whacked two people with his gun and threatened a third with execution. He started to make his way to the double doors where two soldiers were holding the front of the line, twirling his finger above his head. “Alright, we’ve held the docs up long enough. Let’s get movin’, carriers.”

* * *

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what exactly did this to him?” Louis inquired, Ellis now sound asleep.

Rochelle’s insides churned at the memory, but she tried not to let it show. “A Tank caught him when he was on the ground. Grabbed him by the leg.” She recounted the scene in brief bursts, her voice low and monotone as if saying it too clearly would somehow send her back to the bridge where it happened. “Threw him on the ground. Then on a car.”

“Jesus,” Louis breathed, looking at Ellis with shock and then turning back to her, gesturing to Ellis with his thumb. “I have new respect for this boy.”

Rochelle nodded quickly. “We all do.” Her gaze slowly drifted back to the sleeping figure. “Although if it had happened any earlier than it did, he probably wouldn’t have made it.” The sounds of his rasping breaths played in her ears, echoing torturously around the interior of the helicopter.

No.

No more.

She pulled herself away from the memory and looked to Louis again, her demeanor brightening slightly. “That’s the one good thing I have to say about coming to this ship. It saved his life.” She thought for a moment. “Well, one of _two_ good things now. We got to see you guys again.”

She smiled at Louis, and he returned it. “Yep. I think it’s gonna do us all good to be together again.”

Suddenly, there was a loud and impatient knock on the door.

“Open up. _Now_ ,” growled the voice on the other side.

Louis looked to Rochelle, who mimed her own confusion with wide eyes. She hastily opened the door and was greeted by the unsettling sight of two emotionless masks and the soldiers behind them.

“Both of you, out here.”

The pair exited cautiously between the soldiers and the door closed loudly behind them. In the hallway stood Coach, Francis, and Zoey, each of them restrained, and Rochelle couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped her.

Coach’s head was hung shamefully and a smear of blood marked his chin, but otherwise he seemed okay. Zoey on the other hand had a nasty bruise beginning to well up on her cheek while Francis had a similar bruise on his temple, the curves of his face accentuated by a single line of blood dripping from a cut in the center of said bruise.

One soldier that stood in front of them all put his hands on his hips and tilted his head. “Huh. Well that’s good news for you three. You actually weren’t lyin’ to me.” He turned back to his prisoners. “You get to live another day of your miserable little lives, congratulations. Let’s tuck this little experience away as a good life lesson for everyone, yeah?” The soldiers released their captives cautiously as the lead soldier motioned to Louis. “Oh, and make sure you share it with Gimpy, here.”

He made his way deeper into the infirmary with two more soldiers, leading what Rochelle now saw was a line of every carrier on the ship, a miserable single file march of white shirts and khakis. She watched them as they passed, some of them meeting her gaze with a look of sympathy while the rest avoided making eye contact. Valerie gave a visible sigh of relief on her way through, complete with a hand on her chest, while Peggy simply looked tired as ever.

As the end of the queue drew nearer, she finally found Nick. She did her best to plea for some sort of silent explanation, and he pointedly glanced at the three who were previously restrained. His eyes burned with silent fury as he shook his head incredulously.

She didn’t glean much from the answer other than the fact that Nick was livid.

The person bringing up the end of the line passed, and the remaining soldiers directed Rochelle and Louis to follow. Coach, Francis, and Zoey were placed in line after them, and the soldiers walked along as the very last.

The line quickly came to a halt, and Rochelle stuck her head out to try and see around those ahead of her. The people at the front were sent singularly into one of three rooms, but the doors closed behind them to prevent the remaining carriers from getting a sneak peek at what horrible fate awaited them when their turn came.

However, it didn’t take long for the first set of three to exit and walk back along the line, she assumed to make their way back to the common room. Each of them had a square of gauze on the inside of their elbow, just like Ellis had.

Rochelle was comforted that they were being subjected to the fairly normal procedure of drawing blood as opposed to some sort of unethical and admittedly unlikely medical experiment. Of course, they had all given blood upon arrival so the need for more blood was a little strange, especially considering that they had called every single carrier as opposed to only a few, but Rochelle could think of a couple of non-malicious reasons for why they were here.

Everyone on board was aware that Dr. Parson was looking to create a vaccine for the Green Flu, so studies on carrier blood made perfect sense. They could also be stockpiling blood for transfusions in case more injured carriers arrived, or perhaps they were simply trying to monitor everyone’s health.

Either way, she was no longer concerned about the carrier round-up and could instead focus her worries on what sort of trouble Coach and company had gotten into while she was away.

* * *

Nick stepped forward with the person in front of him, doing his best to contain his anger as opposed to releasing it with a loud and rather conspicuous swear as some part of him begged to do.

A storm of thoughts whirled around in his head, his frustration at his friends’ stupidity and fear of the resulting potential deaths amalgamating into one massive headache. He didn’t have a mirror handy, but he had no doubt that a pounding vein was protruding from his temple.

Though he hated to admit it, he was _not_ keen to be left on his own at this point. The new world order clearly favored the pack over the lone wolf, and finding a new pack that was both capable and trustworthy would not be an easy task.

Not to mention, he had grown rather attached to his own little pack despite his attempts to not do so.

He felt a newfound dislike of the group from Rayford now that they had very nearly cost him the life of at least one of his friends, but he doubted his teammates saw things in quite the same light. They were too trusting sometimes, which had initially worked out in his favor since they had trusted _him_ of all people to watch their backs, but now there was no denying that it was becoming a thorn in his side.

The person in front of him stepped into the second room, and Nick reluctantly followed suit into the third room once the current patient cleared out.

Ms. Peacher was waiting inside and directed him to sit on the examination table against the right wall. The top of cart beside her sported several clear containers, each of them holding a significant number of empty vials. The bottom shelf was loaded with several more, filled to the brim with dark red.

“Nicolas, right?” she asked, flipping through the files on the counter behind her.

“The one and only,” he replied dryly, still vexed from the day’s events.

She found his file, confirming her patient’s identity with his stored photograph. She then turned back to him and made a minor adjustment to her latex gloves. “Which arm did we use last time?”

“Right, I guess.” He held his right arm out to her, his hand balled into a fist as she tied a rubber strap around his bicep. She tapped around the inside of his elbow in her search for a vein, the pain of the constricting strap doing nothing to alleviate Nick’s frustration.

She finally found the object of her search and retrieved a needle from a cabinet above the counter, quickly followed by a vial from one of the unused containers on the cart. She stuck the needle into the vein with ease, snapped the vial into the tube hanging from the end of the needle, and within seconds Nick’s blood flooded into the vial.

Nineteen vials later, Ms. Peacher finally removed the needle from his arm and taped a patch of gauze in its place.

“Glad you decided to let me keep _some_ of it.” Ms. Peacher giggled, though Nick was only half-joking.

“It’s actually not that much. They take more when you donate…” Her voice trailed off, though she made no effort to correct herself to the past tense. “Anyway, that’s all we need.” She replaced the top on the container that held his blood vials and wrote his name on it with a marker.

Nick slid off the examination table, but paused on his way out. “Any chance you can say what this is for?”

She seemed to take a moment to weigh the potential repercussions of answering his question. “Research. We finally have enough donors that we should be able to really make some headway on developing a vaccine.” She smiled lightly, but there was something in that smile that Nick didn’t like.

It seemed almost sad.

Knowing he couldn’t stay and interrogate her, Nick exited the room to make way for the next person in line.

He prowled down the hallway, ignoring everyone that he passed until he reached the end. He spared Rochelle and Louis his wrath, but made sure that the final three each got a good second under his scornful glare as he proceeded back to the common room.

Upon returning, he found that their table and deck of cards had both been claimed by a new group of five. With a grunt, Nick settled for another table at the near end of the room, easily one of the least desirable ones. No decks of cards were left unused, and so he was left to await the others’ arrival by counting rivets on the closest wall.

Rochelle was the first to rejoin him, and she wasted no time in questioning him. “What the _hell_ happened?” Since they didn’t have good enough fortune to share a bedroom where they could speak in private, Nick had no choice but to answer her in the open.

He glanced around before replying, making sure that none of the soldiers were paying too much attention to them. “New guys were slow and got called out, Greaseball threw a tantrum, and Coach decided he wanted to play hero and hold him back.”

“Oh, God.” Rochelle rubbed her temples. “This is our fault, Nick.”

“ _Our_ fault? How the hell is this _our_ fault?” Coach was definitely not free of blame and Rochelle could take as much of it as she wanted for all Nick cared, but he was _not_ about to take any sort of blame for what had just transpired. He had been trying his damnedest to keep them all _out_ of trouble.

But the look she gave him told him that she was determined to pin _some_ part of it on him, no matter how much he insisted to the contrary. “I didn’t tell them about yesterday, and I’m guessing neither you nor Coach told them when I was with Ellis.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “We didn’t, but that doesn’t mean this mess is _our_ fault.” He realized that his voice had been rising, and he took another look around to confirm that they were still in the clear. “I feel like I made it pretty fucking clear that you _don’t_ make a scene around here.”

Louis suddenly plopped down to the right of Rochelle, who visibly flinched before realizing that he wasn’t a soldier.

He leaned onto the table, his demeanor strikingly serious relative to how amiable he had been up to that point. “You guys mind fillin’ me in? I need to know why in the hell my friends got socked in the head while I wasn’t around.”

Nick gave Louis a sarcastic smile that was laden with derision. “Simple. Your dumbass friends didn’t listen to me when I said not to draw attention to themselves.”

Rochelle affixed the conman with one of the most scornful scowls he had ever seen from her. “Nick, back off. I will not let you make this situation any worse than it already is.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, once again hating that blind trust his friends clung so tightly to. “Fine. You handle this.” He rose from his seat, but was stopped from walking away by a small, soft hand on his wrist.

“What are you doing?” Rochelle now looked more concerned than angry, but Nick wasn’t ready to forgive anyone just yet.

“I’m taking the rest of your shift.” He jerked his arm out of her grip and headed for the doors leading back into the hallways. He kept his focus on what was in front of him, making a conscious effort to not look back.

As he drew near, the posted guard stepped in front of him with his firearm gripped against his chest. “And just where do you think you’re going?”

“Going to see my friend in the infirmary.” Some nondescript part of him deep down inside still cringed at verbally using the world “friend” in a positive context, such as saying that he actually _had_ one or three, but he was fairly sure the term was more likely to earn him passage than something denoting less attachment.

The soldier stared him down for a moment, but eventually saw fit to let him through.

* * *

 

Coach backtracked along the twisting hallway, which was now empty aside from the occasional soldier. His steps echoed around him, backed by the low hum of the ship’s machinery.

He raised his hand to scratch at his chin, the smear of Francis’s blood now dried enough that it could be peeled away. He flicked the flakes to the floor as they were freed from his skin.

As he rounded a corner, however, he was brought to a halt by a body bumping into his own.

At first, Coach only saw a head of black hair that he couldn’t help but notice was in need of a good shampooing, a common need among carriers on the ship. The face that quickly appeared from underneath was instantly recognizable, however, sporting a crooked nose, knit brows, already-thin lips drawn into a tight frown. “Sorry, Nick.”

Nick surveyed both ends of the hall and crossed his arms. “About running into me or about that little stunt you pulled earlier?” He was still sour apparently, and Coach wasn’t completely sure he blamed him. He knew just how foolhardy and heat-of-the-moment his actions had been and just what sort of repercussions they could have brought about.

That didn’t mean he regretted them, though.

It was now Coach’s turn to look stern. “I ain’t apologizin’ for what I did before. I wasn’t about to just stand by and let them get killed.”

“Why not? We tried to-“ Nick cut himself off, turning his head to listen behind him. New footsteps were growing steadily louder as someone drew nearer. He snuck around the corner and behind the older man. “This conversation isn’t over.”

He then proceeded on towards the infirmary, and Coach continued making his way to the common room. He wasn’t going to be hearing the end of this for quite some time, that much was painfully obvious.

When he arrived, he quickly spotted the table where Louis and Rochelle were talking quietly between themselves. He settled down beside Rochelle, just in time to catch the tail end of her sentence.

“-don’t really know what he meant by that.”

Coach inserted himself into the conversation, disregarding the previous topic of which he had no knowledge to instead voice his immediate concern for the conman in his current mood. “Nick goin’ to see Ellis?”

“That’s where he _said_ he was going,” Rochelle replied, her dry tone reflecting her own doubts that he had been completely honest.

Louis seemed relieved to see him, and just a little bit on the antsy side. “Coach, please tell us what happened.”

“Nick didn’t explain it to you?”

The analyst shook his head. “He just gave us a really basic outline.” The look he wore betrayed that he was omitting some details, but Coach didn’t press for them.

He heaved a sigh, irritated that Nick couldn’t have saved him some trouble. “Some time after y’all left, soldiers came in and rounded all of us up to go to the infirmary. One of ‘em started pickin’ on Zoey, and she didn’t react in the best way so he-”

Louis interrupted him, clearly not wanting to miss any specifics. “What was he doing to Zoey?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see it.” He rubbed a tender spot on his left arm where one of the soldiers had held him just a tad too tightly. “Just saw what happened after.”

“Why did he single her out?”

Coach raised his upturned palms. “He wanted everyone to line up clean and quick. She and Francis both moved a little too slow for him, and so he called ‘em both out. I think she was just closer to him.”

Zoey, who was holding a bag of ice to her left cheek, now occupied the seat to the right of Louis and instantly took his attention off the story.

“Mind if I take a look?” Louis asked, now focused on tending to his friend. She removed the bag gingerly, revealing painful, purple swelling that was trying its best to force her eye shut. Everyone present winced at the sight, and he allowed her to replace the ice. “Damn, girl. That ain’t pretty.”

Zoey shrugged, her uninjured cheek resting on her free hand. “You know I’ve had worse.”

Louis looked back to Coach. “So he punched her because she wasn’t the first person in line?”

The older man shook his head. “That bruise didn’t come from no fist, son. That was the butt of his gun.”

Louis turned once again to Zoey, who nodded.

“And it technically wasn’t ‘cause she was slow,” Coach continued. “It was ‘cause she made a move like she was gonna hit him when he messed with her.” He met Zoey’s gaze much like he would meet that of a student being subjected to an explanation as to why he was being punished, but she gave no reaction.

“Anyway, that’s when he points his gun at her, which Francis did _not_ take kindly to. He starts screamin’ at ‘em and he gets ready to throw down with ‘em...” He trailed off as he remembered the overwhelming urge to intervene that had taken over when he saw Francis charging for the soldier, the biker’s imminent death flashing in his mind’s eye. “I jumped in and grabbed him before he could do anything else he’d regret.”

Without warning, Francis arrived to take his place next to Zoey. “I still don’t see why I’d regret layin’ that bastard out on the floor,” he said, carrying his own bag of ice with his face now clean of the blood that was previously there. “And just so you know, Coach, I’m kinda wantin’ to lay _you_ out now too. I hope you’re ready.”

Coach rubbed his forehead, his patience running thin now that he had not one, but _two_ people mad at him for potentially saving someone’s life, one of those two people actually _being_ a potential life saved.

Rochelle leaned in, clasping her hands in the middle of the table. “Look, we made a bit of a mistake.” She now had Louis, Zoey, and Francis’s full attention. “Something very… _notable_ … happened yesterday, and we didn’t tell you guys about it. I think this whole thing could’ve been avoided if we had.”

“We’re all ears,” Louis said expectantly.


End file.
